Fifteen Thousand Miles In A Ketch

FIFTEEN THOUSAND MILES
IN A KETCH

Mrndian of 0 Cr

5

FIFTEEN THOUSAND MILES

IN A KETCH

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LTD

LONDON EDINBURGH PARIS MELBOURNE
TORONTO AND NEW YORK

The Committee of the Royal National Life¬
boat Institution have called the attention of
the publishers to the fact that Captain du Baty
seems to have misunderstood the situation de¬
scribed on pages 32-33, and it has been
thought desirable to add this correction. The
crew of a lifeboat, in their capacity as salvors
of property, are not acting as servants of the
Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It was
in their capacity of salvors of property that
the coxswain and crew asked for the sum
ultimately paid by Captain du Baty, and
they were within their rights in doing so.
The Institution, so far from doing anything to
enforce^payment in this case, wrote, through
r -its Secretary, deprecating any claim, being
under the impression that the vessel was
owned by people who might not be able to
afford payment. This impression turned out
to be erroneous. The publishers are con¬
vinced that Captain du Baty would be the
first to desire to give publicity to this
correction.

PREFACE

Since Francis Drake went round the world
in the Golden Hind there has perhaps been
no voyage quite so venturesome as that in a
little French fishing ketch, of forty-five tons,
called the J. B. Charcot , which set out from
Boulogne in September of the year 1907, and,
sailing across the South Atlantic, and the
Antarctic and Indian seas, lay to outside
Melbourne Harbour in July 1908—a distance
of 15,000 miles.

I

She was commanded by two young French¬
men hardly more than boys in age, though
captains in the French merchant service,
named Raymond and Henri du Baty, and

she carried a tiny crew of one seaman and
three lads.

When a little while ago Captain Raymond
Rallier du Baty was welcomed home by the

VI

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

French Geographical Society, Prince Roland
Bonaparte, its president, summed up the
voyage in the following words:

‘ You are sixteenth-century adventurers,’ he
said, ‘ who have been lost in the twentieth.’

The story of their remarkable trip in the
little «/. 13. Charcot , named after the famous
French explorer who has just returned from
the Antarctic, as written by the leader of the
expedition, is a true and vivid tale of romance
and adventure which carries one back to the
youth of the world, when men first began to
venture out into unknown seas in frail craft.
With high spirits, full of French gaiety, he
tells of terrific storms encountered by his
fishing boat, and of the many hardships which
they faced with brave hearts.

FIFTEEN THOUSAND MILES

IN A KETCH

CHAPTER I

'Thus having said, he bids us put to sea.

We loose from shore our halsers and obey,

And soon with swelling sails pursue our watery way/

Viroil.

I tell a tale of the sea. It is a tale of a
small sailing boat and of six men, of whom
I was one, and of a long voyage, and of many
strange adventures in lonely places off the
track of the world’s highways. As a plain
seaman I write, without pretence of literary
art and grace, yet able to put down the
straight, simple truth of the things I have
seen, and of the things that happened. As
I write my memory goes back to those two
years of wandering, and I live again through
a 11 the experiences of the days of those years.

2 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and on the blank pages of this paper before
me I see the wild scenery of a desert island,
the great immensity of storm-lashed seas, the
familiar faces of my comrades. Old voices
speak to me, the voices of the wind and
ocean, of sea-birds and sea-beasts, of the
friends who went on the long lone trail with
me. It is a strange thing this craft of pen¬
manship, to which I am unaccustomed. It
brings back the thrill and the life of days

o •

that have passed. Perhaps those who read
my tale may be quickened to the sense of the
realities that lie behind the written words.

I am going, then, to tell the story of my
voyaging for nearly two years—from Septem¬
ber 1907 to the end of July 1909 —in a small
French fishing ketch, the J. B. Charcot , from
Boulogne to Melbourne, a distance, in our
somewhat zig-zag course, of 15,000 miles.
There have been other sailing ships which
have gone longer voyages than that many
times, but I suppose since the great English
seaman, Sir Francis Drake, went round the
world in the Golden Hind , no boat so small.

3

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and so modestly equipped and with such a
tiny crew, has ventured across the Atlantic
and Indian oceans, facing the perils and
suffering the hardships which are inevitable
to such a voyage. I make no claim to fame
for having sailed in so small a boat, for I
frankly confess that if I could have scraped
up more money I would have bought a bigger
and a better ship. Not that I have anything
but affectionate memories of the dear little
J. B . Charcot , which served us sturdily and
bravely through many a wild storm, and at
times when even the largest ship afloat would
have been glad to run for shelter.

But it was the smallness of the boat which
makes our adventure unusual, and to other
people almost laughable. I also laugh now
and find amusement in the poverty-stricken
xvay in which we set out on this voyage of
exploration. It was no laughing matter when

we were caught—a hundred times—in hurri¬
canes which threatened to smash our timbers,
and did actually drive us three times on to
the rocks. The results of the expedition

la

4

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

were not epoch-making. We did not bring
back news of having discovered the North
Pole or the South Pole. That was not our
ambition. Nevertheless we explored many
unknown islands and mapped many un¬
charted coasts and hidden reefs, and made a
great number of soundings in narrow straits
strewn with rocks, by which my fellow-sailors
of all nations will benefit when they may pass
that way. We also brought back a good many
specimens, geological, botanical and entomo¬
logical, new to the museums, so that in a
scientific way the results of the little trip
were interesting.

But this story is addressed more to the
general reader than to the sailor and the
scientist, and I am about to tell the story
of my adventures, rather than of my dis-

w *

coveries. People are still interested in the
romance of the sea. I remember with what
excitement I have read all such stories from
Robinson Cimsoe downwards. My narrative
may be read in the same spirit.

We were six men on board the little

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

5

J. B. Charcot , and for many long months we
saw no other human beings and led a strange,
lonely, but not miserable life. After our
voyage for four thousand miles to Tristan da
Cunha, that island midway between South
Africa and South America upon which is the
most curious and interesting and solitary little
community of English-speaking people in the
world, we sailed again through many terrible
storms without the sight of another ship until
we came to Kerguelen, or the Island of De¬
solation as it is called by American sealers.
Upon that great group of barren, desolate,
uninhabited islands we lived for many months
quite alone.

It was truly a Robinson Crusoe kind of
existence, and people at home who sleep in
soft beds, and eat good food every day, but
whose imagination is fired -by the romance of
a hard, adventurous life, may find interest
and amusement in the plain unvarnished tale
of how we spent our time ; how we, six good
comrades, cut off from civilisation and thrown
upon our own society, faced the daily dangers

6

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and hardships of our lot ; how we obtained
food ; how we kept our sanity and self-respect
in the long loneliness; how we came very
close to Nature in its wildest and most primi¬
tive conditions ; how after many months we
met good friends with news from the outer
world, and with the little luxuries for which
some of us had yearned ; and how finally we
left the desert islands and sailed through
terrific tempests on the long track to Aus¬
tralia, where the sight of the little French
ketch from Boulogne-sur-mer was hailed with
astonishment in Melbourne Harbour.

That is my story, and the details of it are
not, I hope, dull. To us, at the time, each
little incident was exciting. From each peril
we escaped with praise and thankfulness at
our good luck. Perhaps people who read this
book will realise some of our own emotions,
and in imagination share some of the im¬
pressions of our life.

To start with I must introduce myself in
a few words to the reader. I was twenty-
five years old when I bought the J. B.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

7

Charcot , and I had not yet got my certifi¬
cate as Capitaine au long cours (captain in
the merchant service), which I now possess.
But I knew the sea pretty well. The sea
was in my blood, for I had been born on the
coast of Brittany at Laurient, within sound
of the waves, and my people belonged to
the sea. My father was a commander in the
French navy, my uncle was an admiral, many
of my ancestors had 4 gone down to the sea
in ships.* As boys my brothers and I were
always boating and swimming, and though
I said nothing about my ambitions for many
years, I knew that I could not avoid the
family spell. Curiously enough, my father
and mother did not understand this. I was
sent to a Jesuit college, and being of a
serious, quiet nature, they had the idea that I
should become a magistrate. I smile now at
the thought that but for my blood I might

have been a grave and learned person in a
black gown and square cap!

One day, when I was eighteen years of age,
my father came to me and said : ‘ Raymond^

8

15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

it is time you began to think of your career.
What are you going to be ? ’

I looked up and said very simply: ‘ I am
going to be a sailor, father.’

He was astonished.

‘ But it is too late for the navy, my
son.’

‘ Yes, but there is still the merchant
service,’ I said.

My father was shocked. There is a great
gulf between the two branches of seaman¬
ship. The bridge has not yet been built that
can cross such a gulf. But I had my way,
and as a sailor before the mast I made a
voyage round the world in a big sailing ship.
After some years at sea, 1 was lucky in
getting appointed as mate to Dr. Charcot’s
Antarctic Expedition of 1903-5. That was
my first experience of Antarctic exploration,
and in spite of the hardships—and there were
times when it was not altogether a picnic,
you must understand—I was fired with the
ambition to continue in this line of work.
Dr. Charcot was a gallant and generous leader

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

9

and a source of continual inspiration to the
men who served with him. He is still my
great hero, and it is the proudest fact of
my life that I was permitted to share, in
a humble way, the work of that great
expedition.

But afterwards, being as you know a very
young man, and therefore a little ambitious,
I kept wondering what I could do on my
own account in the way of exploration. It
seemed to me that it would be a very excel¬
lent idea if I set out to discover something!
But there was one little trouble. I was a
poor man. My poverty was really most em-
barrassing to my ambitions. But I had some
small savings, and I had a brother with a few
pounds also. He was a sailor like myself,
and in the merchant service, and when, after
a good deal of silent thought, I put my idea
before him, he was not at all unsympathetic.

My idea was to lead an expedition to
Kerguelen, that collection of barren islands
m the Indian Ocean. I had often heard of
it as an old haunt of sealers, but I knew that

10 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

it was now uninhabited and that it was to
a great extent uncharted. It seemed to me
that if, by hook or by crook, we could get a
small boat of our own, it would be a merry
adventure to get across the world from
France to Australia, exploring the Island of
Desolation on our way. There were plenty
of seals there, and seal oil is worth £17 a
ton. If we had luck we might pay our
expenses with a little to the good by carry¬
ing a cargo of oil to Melbourne.

But that was not the chief inducement for
going. What appealed to me more irresist¬
ibly as each day went by, was the prospect
of adding some new knowledge to the history
of exploration. I wanted to be a good dis¬
ciple of Dr. Charcot. I bought a chart of
Kerguelen, and my brother and I pored over
it for hours together. It was a chart like
one of those made by the early navigators,
when Vasco da Gama and Sebastian Cabot
and the Spanish and Dutch and English
‘ sea-dogs ’ were sailing the waters of the
world, for much of the coast-line of that

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 11

archipelago was but vaguely outlined and
great parts of it had been quite unexplored.

Here was a chance for good work and good
adventure ! My brother and I had already
explored the island in imagination long before
we had bought our boat.

That was now to be done. What was the
best boat we could buy for the smallest
amount of money ?

I went to Boulogne and, without telling
anybody a word of my plans, searched the
shipyards for a good vessel. I saw many
fine seaworthy ships awaiting a purchaser,
but, alas! they were very costly. I could as
soon have bought a mail steamer. There
were others which had served for years in
the coasting trade and had been scarred and
weather-worn in many a storm at sea. I
went among these, and with my knife stabbed
their timbers and thrust between the planks,
to test the strength of them. Some of them
were rotten and leaky. It would have been
like putting to sea in a ready-made coffin to
go out in one of them.

12 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Rut at last I found a ketch, or fishing boat,
which seemed to promise well. It was called
the Sacra Corur da Jesus. It had done years
of service and it had been handed over to
a shipbuilder as part payment for a new
boat. It was not a beautiful object. The
bulwarks were smashed ; it had no masts or
spars ; the deck was rotten and broken and
it was nothing but an old hull.

Rut I could see that the hull itself was
sound, and that the timbers ought to stand
the strain of many more years of weather.
'Fhe more I looked at her the more I believed
that when some money had been spent upon
her, and when she was fitted out with new
masts and rigging, she would not make us
ridiculous or ashamed when we hoisted our
flag. Her length of hull was 50 feet, so that
you will see we were not about to set out
on a journey across the world in a vessel
of prodigious size! She was indeed no¬
thing more than an ordinary Roulogne
ketch of 48 tons, but I believed that my
scanty means would make her seaworthy

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 13

in fair weather or foul. So I made my
bargain.

I need not hide how much I paid for that
old hull. People will be amused to know
that we crossed two oceans, and weathered
two years of storms, in a boat that we bought
for no more than £00. Of course we had to
spend a good deal more than that before she
was ready for our trip. We had to fit her
out with new masts, rigging and sails—an
expensive business; we had to put in a new
deck and new bulwarks; to build new cabin
space, and strengthen the hold. We also
put on board four rowing boats, two of them
being light and flat-bottomed, for landing in
shallow water, and two being heavier rowing
boats with keels.

Altogether we spent something like £600
in making shipshape the Sacre Cceur de Jesus ,
which henceforth was to be called the
J. B . Charcot in honour of the famous
French explorer with whom I had been in
the Antarctic.

I look back with pleasure to that work at

i

14 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Boulogne. We were young men, and it was
a joyous thing to us to be the sole pro¬
prietors of a vessel; and like boys who build
their first toy yacht, we took the keenest
delight and pride in all the carpentering and
shipbuilding work that filled up two months
of our time. Finally, when we had put
some paint on the hull and fixed up the
rigging, and hoisted our sails, the J. B.
Charcot seemed to us a pretty thing of
which we might well be proud. But even
then I could not help laughing at the in¬
significant size of the boat in which I pro¬
posed to voyage so far.

I now had to be very busy in provisioning
the ship for the expedition and getting the
equipment necessary for a sealing trip, for
life on a desert island, and for a voyage in
which we should be many months out of
touch with land. All this wanted a great
deal of careful thought, for not only our own
lives, but the lives of those unknown men
who were to be our crew depended upon the
sound judgment with which we chose our

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 15

stores. Long ago I had drawn up a careful
list of what I wanted to take, but I soon
found out the difference between equipping
a Charcot or Shackleton expedition and a
modest little venture like my own, for the
ideal list was far beyond my purse.

I was determined, however, not to make
cheapness a virtue but to buy the best of
everything. I know how fatal economy has
been in voyages of exploration. I went
therefore to Damoy, the well-known dealer
in Paris who has provisioned many expedi¬
tions. I take this opportunity of expressing
my best thanks to him. He gave me very
low prices when I let him into the secret of
our proposed adventure, and sent back 500
francs when I paid the bill. It is not

often that one meets with such generous
dealing.

As our life for the next two years depended
to a great extent upon the stores which we
took on board the «/. 1$. Charcot at Boulogne,
I think it will be of interest to give some
idea of their character.

16 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

I bought first of all a large quantity of
boiled beef in tins, and tinned vegetables
which included beans, peas, and cabbages,
and carrots, cut up into small pieces. We
took many cases of ship-biscuits, sufficient
for six men for two years, a large stock of
rice, and a quantity of vermicelli, which
proved to be one of our best supplies, as
we never grew tired of it, though we
sickened of the preserved meat. Pemmican
for shore journeys, soup tablets, a few
delicacies for special occasions, like patd de
foie gras, chocolate, dried plums, almonds
and raisins, pickles, and many cases of tea,
coffee and cocoa, and tinned milk, concluded
a list of food stuffs which was cut down to
the barest necessities.

It is usual in the French merchant service
for the sailors to have a daily allowance of
rum and wine. In our case the smallness
of the vessel and the length of our journey
would make it impossible to carry so many
casks of wine and spirit. We therefore took
enough wine to last for about five months

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 17

at the rate of £ a litre daily per man, and a
small quantity of rum in case of sickness.

Water, of course, was of the utmost im¬
portance and we carried 2 tons in cement-
lined tanks. As will be seen, we were able
to replenish these tanks at Madeira and
Rio, and there was always plenty in
Kerguelen.

Included in the list of general stores
were:—

4 guns: 2 double-barrelled for small shot;
1 army rifle of the Gras pattern; 1
double-barrelled gun, shooting bullets

from one barrel and shot from
another.

2 cameras: 1 Kodak with films; 1
camera with plates.

Chronometer.

Sounding instruments.

Theodolyte.

Barometers.

Thermometers.

Sextants.

Other navigating instruments.

18

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Material for making casks.

Picks and shovels.

Carpenters’ tools.

Blasting cartridges.

Spare sailcloth, with needles and twine.

Axes.

Furnace and ‘kettles’ for melting seal
blubber.

1 tent.

We had spent most of our money by the
time we had obtained these stores, but at the
end of two months, after the idea had been
first settled, we were happy in having a good
little boat and an equipment that was modest
but sufficient for a long trip.

There had been no trouble in obtaining a
crew. As soon as we had begun to be busy
in Boulogne the news had gone round that
we were preparing for a voyage of adventure,
and many seafaring men and lads came to
volunteer for the job. We did not want old
men, or married men, or men who were not
prepared to do a great deal of hard work on
shore as well as at sea, which is outside the

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 19

usual contract of French sailors. We pre¬
ferred youth rather than experience, and
brave hearts rather than much wisdom. As
a matter of fact, we obtained a crew in which
both youthful spirit and seamanship were
combined, and the bravery of which will
never be forgotten by me.

I will give a complete list of the crew here
(it was not very large!), although one among
them—Larose—only joined us later when we
were in an English harbour.

Henri Rallier du Baty :
Raymond Rallier du Baty:
Jean Bontemps:

Leon Agnes:

Eugene Larose:

Louis Esnault:

Captain, aged 27.'I

„ > Bretons.

Mate, aged 25. J

Boatswain, aged 43. Basque.

Sailor, aged 22. \

Sailor, aged 18. I Normans.

Cook, aged 16. '

It will be seen that my brother Henri was
rated as captain. He was older than I, and
therefore I thought he ought to have the
position of chief navigating officer, while I
was organiser and leader of the expedition.
Of the men and lads I shall have much to say

20 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

later on, and here it is sufficient just to in¬
dicate their characters.

Jean Bontemps, for example, was a sailor
of the old-fashioned school who had lived at
sea for most of the years of his life, who had
crossed the Line a score of times, who was a
handy-man at all the craft of seamanship, and
who had a firm belief in his own way of doing
things. Superstitious, hard-headed, slow of
speech, he was tremendously strong, and
absolutely faithful to those in command.
We asked no more of him.

Agn6s was a tall, fair fellow who had been
away in the cod fisheries off* Newfoundland.
He had dreamy blue eyes which seemed to
see a thousand miles off, and his greatest
recreation was to play the accordion and sing
old Norman songs in a voice that was not
unmusical. I found him always intelligent,
interested in all the things around him, and a
pleasant companion. He and I have had
many great adventures together. We have
risked death together. We have spent many
days alone together on the grim rocks, and in

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 21

the brooding silence of the Island of Desola¬
tion. I shall always remember Agn&s as a
friend, brave as a lion, true as steel, a good
fellow.

Larose—what shall I say? Larose, too,
was faithful, and quite fearless, and what was
best of all perhaps, he provided our laughter.
Even now I laugh every time I think of
Larose with his puffed-out cheeks and his
enormous, insatiable, all-devouring appetite.
He was the comedy man of the J . jB. Charcot ,
and I think a little later on my readers will

like to follow his adventures in search of
food.

Louis Esnault was the cook. Did I say

‘cook’? Well, he could fry fish, and he

certainly broke all our plates, and in his

galley on deck there was always a great

smell. Yes, he was our cook, but I ate the

meals he had prepared with blind confidence

and without thinking of all the dark mysteries

that had gone before. But he did his best,

poor lad, and worked hard, and was brave
also, and I am grateful to him.

22 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Well, there we were then, with our ship
and our stores and our crew, and towards the
end of September 1907, we were ready to
start on our adventures. By some means or
another the object of our expedition had
leaked out, but the first news of it was given
to the general public by a two-column article
in Le Matin . Interest and curiosity were
aroused, and a few days before we got away,
numbers of people swarmed on board to have
a look at the little ketch which was going
across the world. We were laughed at a
good deal. Our visitors cried ‘ Ciel ! ’ and
‘ Sapristi ! ’ and lifted up their eyes and their
hands in wonder, and were good enough to
say that we were going to our deaths, but
wished us * Bon Voyage ’ all the same. It was
all very droll.

Our friends, however, were very generous.
M. Fourny, a Boulogne shipowner, lent us a
tug which took us out of harbour, and carried
a number of shipowners who came to see us
off*. It was at 6 a.m. on the morning of
22nd September 1907 that we hoisted sail

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 23

and flew the French flag. Crowds of people
were on the quayside and gave us parting
cheers, and as my brother and I stood at the
helm, we felt very proud and happy. After
our months of hard work in planning and
organising, it was good now to stand on our
own little boat, to see our sails bellying out
in a good breeze, to hear the wash of the
water along our sides, to see the sunlight
glancing on the waves, and to be at last on
our way to the great venture which had been
in my dreams so long.

As yet, however, we did not leave the
shores of France. We ran round to Cher¬
bourg, where the French Minister of Marine
generously lent us a number of navigating
instruments, thereby acknowledging that our
little vessel was bound for a serious scientific
expedition worthy of official recognition,
instead of being merely out for adventure
and seal-hunting. From Cherbourg I made
a train journey to Paris to say good-bye to
my parents. All such partings leave one a
little sad and serious, and in that family fare-

24 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

well there was the thought that we might
never meet again on this side of the grave.
But, after all, that thought does not affect a
family of sailors too much. The risks of a
seafaring life are accepted as a matter of
course. My father and mother had said
good-bye to their sons many times before,
and there was no reason to be miserable or
melancholy on this occasion. In spite of my
fathers regret that we had not followed the
family traditions and joined the French navy,
I think he was glad that we were engaged in
a venture in which, perhaps, we might gain a
little honour. He wished us good luck, and
my mother gave me her blessing, and I knew
the prayers of that good woman would follow
me across the world.

I went back to Cherbourg with a new
source of courage and hope, and from that
port we sailed on 13th October. I chose that
day deliberately to prove that I was free from
superstition, and I remembered that Nansen
had once started on Friday, the 13th. for the
same reason, and without those awful results

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 25

which ought to have attended him if old
sailors’ tales could be believed.

As we left the coast, all of us on board that
little boat took a long last look at the land
we loved so well. We were to pass through
many storms and many perils before any of
us would see the shores of France again. Yet
we were not dispirited at the thought. We
were all bachelors, and we left no weeping
wives and children behind. Hope was in
front of us, and a thousand adventures called
to us down the wind. My brother and I
were young enough to go gaily into the heart

of the unknown, whatever luck or ill-luck
might be lurking there.

26 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

CHAPTER II

4 To heaven aloft on ridgry waves we ride
Then down to hell descend when they divide.*

Virgil.

I told you 1 am not superstitious. \ et I
confess that if I had any leanings that way I
should have regretted my audacity in starting
upon a thirteenth day of the month.

Soon after leaving Cherbourg we had bad
weather, and the voyage of the J. B. Charcot
began with a most miserable and ridiculous
series of misadventures. A strong south-west
gale blew up the Channel, and we could make
no progress on our course, but kept tacking
about for two days between the Casquets and

the Eddystone light

Old Bontemps the boat¬

swain—we called him ‘ old Bontemps for he

was nearly twice the age of most of us, though
in the prime of life—shook his head very

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 27

mournfully and with an expression of ‘ I told
you so.’ He knew it was flying in the face
of providence to start on the thirteenth.

My brother and I were not exactly anxious,
but alert to the fact that at the very outset
of our long trail our little boat was to be
put to the test. We knew that if she failed
us now and showed any sign of being unsea¬
worthy, we should have no chance of success
when we faced fiercer storms than this
south-westerly gale within call of home. At
the end of two days I began to remember
several things which we had omitted from
our list of stores. I hankered after English
matches and English jam ! It seemed to me
that this was an excellent opportunity to run
into an English port to obtain those articles.
Henri my brother—laughed, but agreed that
it might be well to get those matches.

So we made for Brixham near Dartmouth.
We anchored outside the harbour with the
idea of testing our cables, knowing that if
ever we reached the Island of Desolation we
should be at the mercy of those chains.

2

28 1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

The gale was now very strong and we
could see a great number of English vessels
running for shelter inside the breakwater. I
learnt afterwards that they were astonished
to see us anchored on the wrong side of that
protecting wall. They knew the danger of
our position better perhaps than we did. At
three o'clock in the afternoon, after our boat
had been straining upon taut chains, one of
the cables snapped and we swung round in
a perilous way. There was but one thing
to do. It would have been mad to stay
outside the harbour in such a plight. We
slipped the second chain, and with close-
reefed sails and no jib, ran for harbour.

Crowds of people were on the jetty and
we could hear them shouting to us as though
we were in deadly peril. Through my glasses
I could see the crew of the life-boat getting
ready to come to our aid. They were waiting
for us to hoist a signal of distress, but we
were too proud to do that, and in any case
we had a strong objection to the idea of
paying out all our pocket-money in salvage

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 29

fees. My brother and I both agreed that
we could do very well without the life-boat.

As a matter of fact we did very badly,
and we could not altogether escape the
enthusiastic desire of the Brixham life-boat
men to rescue us, willy-nilly. When we
ran with the wind at a great pace past the
breakwater we found the harbour crowded
with boats and we plunged into the midst
of them. The fishermen were shouting and
swearing, and it was a scene of terrific con¬
fusion in a howling gale which plucked at the
cordage of all those boats and made them
sing like harp-strings. We could not drop
anchor in such a hurry and, at a quick word
from my brother, Bontemps sprang on to the
deck of one of the boats between which we

were tearing our way and made fast with a
strong rope.

lhen the life-boat crew could not be
restrained. Doubtless they had been dis¬
appointed that we had not signalled to
them for help, but their habit of saving life
was strong upon them and they could not

30 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

miss such an heroic opportunity, though
rather late in the day. It was not our
lives they desired to save but those of their
compatriots. They sprang on board to make
the line fast, and moored us to a buoy where
we could do no more harm.

It h ad all happened in a few minutes, but
it was long enough to do and to suffer a
lot of damage. We were in a deplorable
condition after that wild race for shelter. Our
top-mast, bowsprit, and main-gaff were broken,
and our bulwarks had been smashed as we
jammed our way between the fishing smacks.

Nor had our neighbours gone scot free.
To tell the honest truth we had had no
time nor room for courtesies, and we had
left very ugly marks upon the hulls of several
English boats. When we stopped our mad
career my brother and I looked at each other
ruefully and laughed—on the wrong side of
the face. It was amusing, but not part of
our programme of exploration. The wind
had called the tune and we should have to
pay the piper.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 31

But we were staggered when next morning
the bill was presented to us. The Brixham
life-boat crew claimed £50 for assistance
rendered, and several smack-owners claimed
heavy sums for damage sustained.

Here was a pretty kettle of fish! We
had not much more than enough money in
our chest .to pay for the mending of our
own boat, and if we had to pay in addition
such heavy fines, we should be poverty-
stricken.

My brother and I had several interviews
with Coxswain Sanders of the Brixham life¬
boat. We pointed out to him that we had
not called for help, that his men had boarded
our boat without invitation, and that we
had never been in the slightest danger. Of
course we desired to make a donation to each
member of the crew in recognition of their
friendliness, but £50 was in our opinion alto¬
gether beyond the mark.

Mr. Sanders was a splendid fellow, as
honest as the day is long, and most polite.
But he told us in his quiet way that £50

32 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

was according to the usual scale of salvage
service and that £50 we should have to pay.

This wretched business kept us no less
than twenty days in Brixham. Here we
were kicking our heels about in a little
English port when we ought to have been
a thousand miles at least on our way to
the desert island. It w’as exasperating and
humiliating.

By a curious chance it was Dr. Charcots
sister who came to our rescue. This lady,
who was in England at the time, happened
to read in a west-country paper an article
entitled ‘ French Sailors’ Peril.’ Being a
quick-witted woman and a very kind one,
she instantly went to work to extricate us
from our difficulty. She took the advice of
a lawyer in London and wired to us ‘Don't
pay.’ From our French Consul in Dart¬
mouth, Mr. Collins, we had similar advice,
upon which we acted in our negotiations with
the Royal National Life-Boat Institution, who
had now taken the matter in hand. They
telegraphed to us ‘ Pay £40,’ then ‘ Pay £30.’

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 33

Then they issued their ultimatum : 4 Pay £20
or go into court.’ Naturally we did not want
to go into court. It would have wasted time,
it would have cost more money, and it would
have made us look still more ridiculous when
the case was reported in the French papers.

So we accepted the compromise, and paid
up the sum agreed to the life-boat crew, and
another £100 for damages to boats. It had

at this Eng¬
lish seaside resort! Indeed we had felt like
prisoners of war bargaining for our ransom.
The only advantage we gained from our stay in
Brixham was the acquisition of those English
matches and of that English jam for which
I had expressed a wish, and some very
pleasant conversation with our friends the

been a most expensive holiday

enemy. Coxswain Sanders and his crew

made us presents of fish and extended many

courtesies to us (after we had paid the money),

and we parted with them on the best of
terms.

I must not forget to mention, however,
that before leaving we obtained a new mem-

34 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

her of our crew—Larose. We were in need
of another man, and there was a French brig
in Brixham, whose captain we visited with
the request that he might spare us one of his
hands. He mentioned Larose at once. He
told us that this youth was admirably honest,
wonderfully strong, very brave and very use¬
ful in every possible way. Such an accumu¬
lation of virtues made us a little suspicious.
It seemed to us strange that the captain
should be willing and almost eager to part
with such a jewel. I mentioned that point.
‘But, captain,’ I said, ‘how is it that you
care to spare him to us ? ’

‘ Oh, that is very simple,’ said the captain;
‘ he eats too much.’

My brother and I laughed very heartily.
We had no desire to keep our crew on short
rations, and we were quite prepared to let
Larose satisfy his appetite. Little however
did we know at that time the vastness of the
appetite which we took on board with our
new comrade! We had much to learn in
this respect.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 35

It was on the 6th of November that we got
away from Brixham. The weather was in
our favour now, and with a good north-west
wind and all sails set we ran swiftly to
Madeira. We stayed there five days, having
a very enjoyable time on that beautiful little
island, where we took in fresh water and fruit.

One night my brother had a misadventure
which for a moment or two endangered his
life and revealed a new point in Laroses
character. He was rowed on shore by this
young seaman, and in landing upon the quay
steps in the darkness he slipped and fell into
the water. Fortunately he was able to
scramble out, but not with any help from
Larose.

That simple fellow had no desire to see
my brother drown before his eyes, but his
thoughts moved slowly, and his sense of
politeness was more remarkable than his
activity. He could not bring himself to grab
the arm of his superior officer. He leant
over his boat and said very quietly and
courteously, ‘Captain, shall I give you my

36 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

hand ? ’ My brother would certainly have
gone to what the English sailors call Davy
Jones’s locker, if he had depended upon the
exertions of Larose !

We had excellent weather with us when
we left Madeira and steered a south-westerly
course across the South Atlantic. It was a
joy to us to find how well the J. B. Chay'cot
made headway when all her sails were set,
and we soon became full of affection for this
trim little boat which was to be our home for
the next two years.

Naturally we were in close quarters. There
was no superfluous room on or below deck,
and every inch of space was occupied. We
had only one cabin, and my brother and I
shared it for sleeping and eating with the
men. It was about eight feet long, and when
all six men were at table each of us had to be
careful about our elbows. There were six
bunks in this cabin, three on each side, and
those were the only places on the ship which
a man might claim as his own, and where he
might keep his private property.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 87

Those private belongings of the crew did
•not amount to much, but like all sailors they
had their little treasures—old letters from
home, family photographs, a few knick-knacks
given to them by their sweethearts or friends,
a picture or two cut from a French paper, a
tobacco-pouch, a jack-knife, a steel watch,
and such like.

My brother and I had our own treasures,
and we had decorated the cabin in a way that
pleased our eyes and reminded us of friends
at home. A framed portrait of Dr. Charcot,
the 4 presiding genius ’ of our expedition, hung
on a bulkhead, and the inscription which he
had written across it was good to read :

‘Aux officiers et a lequipage du gibet Charcot
souhaits sinceres de rdussite. Charcot.’ (To the

officers and crew of the ketch Charcot sincere wishes for
success.)

In that cabin my brother and I spent many
hours through the days and weeks and years
of our voyage, poring over charts, consulting
each other upon difficulties present or ahead,
talking of old times when we were boys

38 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

together, reading old books when we were not
on watch, and when we were surrounded by,
the loneliness of the Island of Desolation;
leaning with our elbows on the table and our
faces in our hands, silent perhaps, but think¬
ing of all those anxieties, hopes, disappoint¬
ments, and dangers which we had to face;
sometimes ill, sometimes very dejected, often
very weary. It is strange what a world of
thought may be contained within such narrow
walls! This cabin was the parlour of our life
in which we found society, recreation, amuse
ment and rest.

It was also our library. My brother and I
are both fond of reading, and I remember
that among the books I took was a set of
Rudyard Kipling's works translated into
French by the Vicomte Robert d’Humieres.
They were a source of immense pleasure to
me, and many times I marvelled at the know¬
ledge of sea life and of the animal world, so
intimate and so accurate, displayed by this
English master of prose and verse. The
Jungle Book was a source of continual enter-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 39

tainment, and I was charmed especially by
such tales as the 4 White Seal.’

I think I may say without exaggeration
that I know a good deal about seals and sea-
elephants. I have had many Homeric com¬
bats with them. For months they were our
only companions in the Island of Desolation.
But Rudyard Kipling knows as much as I do,
and has told what he knows in a way which
I cannot emulate.

Before leaving France I had come across
my chest of school-books which had never
been opened since I left the Jesuit college
where I had been educated. The,idea came
to me that it would be amusing to take them
on board the J. B. Charcot , and browse again
over the leaves of those old class-books which
as a boy I had hated so much, but now
remembered with affection. I took the chest
with me, and for many nights at sea when I
sat alone in the little cabin, while my brother
was keeping the watch on deck, I read, by
the dim light of an oil lamp, my copies of
Horace and Virgil, so that many familiar lines

40

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

of those old masters now come singing through
my brain.

And at Kerguelen I took my Horace with
me on many a solitary expedition into the
interior; and in places where no human foot¬
steps had ever trodden before, where great
grim rocks frowned above me, and where
beyond no keel furrowed the grey and deso¬
late sea, I sat alone with the Latin poet,
reciting sometimes aloud his polished lines,
enchanted by the melody of the verse and by
his vivid word pictures. It was the first time
I had ever enjoyed my textbooks, and I went
to school again in the Island of Desola¬
tion.

Now that we are out on the broad waters
of the South Atlantic ‘rolling down to Rio,’
it will be well for me to give the reader some
idea of our daily life on board, and of the
men who were making this adventure.

We kept strict discipline. The smallness
of our boat and crew made that even more
necessary than if we had been on a great
sailing ship. The watches were kept day and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 41

night from Boulogne to Melbourne. There
were always three on deck—one at the helm,
one at the look-out, and the officer of the
watch. My brother and I took it in turns to
be on deck, and as a rule my brother had Bon-
temps the boatswain and Esnault the cook to
keep watch with him, while I had Agnbs and
Larose. As in the English navy we had two
dog-watches (from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and from
C p.m. to 8 p.m.), so that the men who had
only four hours’ rest one night might have
eight hours the next, turn and turn about.

As soon as daylight came, the men who
had been sleeping would get out of their
bunks for morning coffee and biscuits prepared
by Esnault, and it was then that we heard the
noise which became so familiar to us, and so
alarming, in spite of being familiar, as the

months passed. It was the noise of Larose
eating ship’s biscuits 1

The other men would be satisfied with one
or two. Larose was never satisfied with less
than seven or eight. Steadily as a machine
his teeth would get to work, grinding, grind-

42 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ing at those big hard biscuits, so that when we
heard him at work, in the Atlantic or Indian
Oceans, or in the bays of Kerguelen, my
brother and I used to say, ‘ There goes the
biscuit mill! Time to get up.’

At meals, which we used to take as a rule
at midday and at six o’clock in the even¬
ing, Larose used to eat as much as all the
rest of us put together. It was really no joke,
you understand ! Henri and I were terrified
at the sight of such voracity. We had pro¬
visioned our ship for two years, but without
reckoning such a monstrous appetite as this!
It was an awful thought that our store of
biscuits would give out if Larose had his way
with them. Yet we never had the heart to
check him, and to ask him to tighten his belt
wou^jd have been sheer cruelty.

had a peculiar way of eating. He
would set4^ om j 00 k a t what he put into his
mouth, but\ wou ] ( j ladle in the soup, or do
spade-work w K^h his knife and fork in a
dreamy way, with. a f ar _away look of mysti¬
cism in his eyes, anc^ w jth a spiritual expres-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 43

sion on his face, as though he were indifferent
to such a material thing as food.

He had come on board, not exactly thin,
but certainly not fat. Before a month had
passed he swelled visibly. His cheeks be¬
came puffed out, his clothes were bursting.
Buttons jumped from him at meal-times.
Before another month had gone he could no
longer get into his trousers, and a new pair
had to be made for him out of sail-cloth.
My brother Henri used to watch him with
increasing terror, and although we laughed
a good deal also, it was impossible to get rid
of the haunting thought that Larose would
eat his way through the ship’s stores before we
had got to Kerguelen and its seals. Believe
me, I do not exaggerate the devouring appe¬
tite of this simple soul, whom I remember
with affection.

After meal-times, and when there was no
work in hand (though we were not idle), the
men preferred to slip away from the cabin to
a little cubby hole where they played cards
for hours together, or sat smoking and chat-

44 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

ting in their slow way. For sailors are not
glib of speed). Bontemps and Agnes were
the two great smokers. The boatswain was
never happy unless he were chewing a quid
or sucking a pipe. It was his one joy in life,
and if robbed of that, he became morose
and miserable. Agnes also was a slave to
tobacco. Mv brother and I were free from
that desire. I never smoke on sea or ashore,
and Henri, curiously enough, and contrary to
the usual custom of sailors, only smokes when
he is on land.

Agnds, as I have said, was our musician.
In his spare time he used to get out his
accordion and, either in the hole amidships
or up on deck, he used to play the plaintive
tunes of his native Normandy, and sing the
old folk-songs, or amuse his comrades with
the gay little chansons of the boulevards and
cafe concerts. Often I have seen him lean¬
ing against the bulwarks in the stern of the
J. 11. Charcot , a tall, strong figure with
dreamy blue eyes, and the wind tossing his
fair hair, as we scudded along in a good

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 45

breeze, and above the sound of the wind
thrilling through our rigging, and the mur¬
muring voices of the sea and the cry of the
sea-birds, came the sweet clear voice of Agn£s,
faintly as it was carried away on the passing
• gusts into the eternal solitude. I think he
found a good deal of quiet joy, poor lad, in
that gift of song and music.

Esnault the cook was nearly always busy in
his galley on deck, for when one meal was
finished another had to be prepared—and
there was always Larose to think of.

Esnault would not have qualified as chef

at any Hotel Metropole. His methods were

primitive and he had no prejudices. There

is an old English proverb, I believe, which

says every man must eat a peck of dirt

before he dies. Having voyaged with Esnault,

I have fulfilled my obligations in that re¬
spect.

He had a passion for breaking things, or at
least a fatal knack, and I am almost driven
to the belief that he used to eat his cloths.
At least they disappeared in a miraculous

46 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

manner, for whereas we started out with a full
stock of the most elegant dish-cloths, they had
vanished by the time we had reached Madeira,
and lie was reduced to using oakum to wipe
up the plates and dishes. Presently, how¬
ever, he saved himself some of this labour,
for there were few plates and dishes that
remained safe and sound.

Even our big casserole or stewing-pot
was not proof against him, and he knocked
a hole in it. It was his habit to conceal
these breakages, and then, when taxed with
them, he would say, with an air of innocent
surprise, ‘ Oh, but that was broken a long
time ago, Captain.’ It was certainly a long
time before we discovered the loss of our
coffee-roaster, in which, under heavy pains
and penalties, Esnault was required to roast
our beans each morning. YVe found out
afterwards that this machine had had a fatal
accident, and that our beans were cooked
in the ordinary frying-pan.

I have a robust stomach, and imagination
is not my strongest quality, but I used to

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 47

avoid going within a respectable distance of
the cook’s galley before, and for a little while
after, meal-time. But, after all, Esnault was
a good fellow, and did his duty faithfully,
according to his light. He was an orphan,
and, as I have told you, only sixteen years
of age. One could not be hard on him. I
think, in some previous experiences, he had
been ill-used, for during the first few weeks,
whenever my brother spoke to him, up would
go his elbow with an involuntary gesture
as though to shield himself from a blow.
Of my brother he stood in wholesome
fear, though there was no reason for that.
Curiously enough he did not care two sovs
for me, and would simply laugh when I
suggested certain things to him in the way
of culinary reform.

Jean Bontemps was our handy-man, a
‘salt’ in every drop of his blood, and very
wise with the wisdom of the sea. His senses
were so tuned to the wind that he felt an
approaching storm, or calm, in his marrow¬
bones, and he could do all the practical work

48 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

of seamanship, such as sail-making or mend¬
ing, or the odd jobs of carpentry, with expert
skill. But, although obedient to command,
he had a dogged way with him, and had a
stolid dislike to any ‘ new-fangled ’ methods
of handling a ship, or doing the work in a
ship.

‘ Pardon me, Captain,’ he would say, ‘ but
I have never seen a job done in that style
before, and I have been thirty years at sea.’

And I w r ould answer him, ‘ Bontemps, mon
ami , before you are many months older your
eyes will be opened to many things you have
never seen before. You 11 have to get used to
these little surprises, you know.’

Whereat he would shake his head and go
away to brood over the matter.

I have forgotten to mention two other
members of the crew not on the ship’s list,
but sharing our rations and our adventures.
One was Patrick the dog, the other was Puss-
in-Boots, a black cat with one eye.

Patrick had a history. He had sailed with
my brother on a long voyage, but at Queens-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 49

town, where my brothers ship put in for a
while, it was impossible to take the dog
ashore on account of the English quarantine
regulations. Reluctantly, therefore, Henri
handed him over to a French fishing boat off
Queenstown, in which Patrick was taken to
Boulogne. For a year, perhaps, my brother
lost sight of his faithful friend, but when 1
was on my quest for a boat in Boulogne,
Henri suggested that I should try to get
Patrick back again. By good luck I found
the dog, and he was delighted beyond measure
to find himself afloat again with his former
master.

Patrick was a fine fellow with much natural
gaiete de caeur , and he helped to keep things
cheerful on board, sharing our watches and
keeping a sharp look-out on his own account.
It was always Patrick who first caught sight
of the porpoises at sea, and he would bark
furiously to announce his discovery. Then,
too, when we hauled in fish—and we always
trailed a line astern—he became excited to
the point of madness when he saw the gleam-

50 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ing white bodies of our victims, and would
race up and down the deck, and then stand,
quivering in every limb, with his ears cocked
up, and his nose over the bulwark, to see
them taken on board.

What shall I say further about our passage
to Rio ? To a landsman it would seem
devoid of incident and interest. He would
wonder how six men could live mewed up
in a small boat like the J. B. Charcot , day
after day, night after night, with nothing to
do (so he would think !), without beginning
to quarrel, and without hating each other
—and going melancholy mad !

A sailor will smile at such a gloomy
picture. To a seaman there is continual
interest in the sea that seems so monotonous
to the landsman, plenty of work to do in
the ship, and a world of thought to keep
his brain busy. By day and night the
navigating officer had to make his observa¬
tions to be entered each day in the log,
and we were always reading the wind and
weather with as much interest as a man.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 51

ashore will keep his nose between the leaves
of an exciting novel. The good breeze that
was taking our small craft at a spanking
rate across the great desert, where the waters
were furrowed only by our lone keel, whipped
the blood to our hearts, for it was good to
know that we were making up lost time in
such a gallant style.

It was good to stand at the helm and
feel the throb of the boat in our grip as she
met each rolling wave and took it like a
sea-gull. The soul of the ship speaks to
one. The man at the helm has a long
conversation with her, and she has many
things to tell. One knows when she is dis¬
tressed, when she is moody and wayward.
One shares her joyfulness when she springs
forward lightly and fleetly with the wind
singing through her sails. Other voices
speak to the seaman. The main-mast and
the mizzen-mast and the bowsprit are living
things. One sees how their strength is tried,
how they quiver as the sails tug at them,
how they thrill when all canvas is spread and

52 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the boat goes on a long chase, how every
fibre of them is strained when the invisible
arms of the storm winds try to tear them
down or smash them into matchwood.

The seamans eye watches each rope and
pulley and boom and spar. He knows the
strength of them and the weakness. And
around him all the time are the great waters
and the great sky, talking to him also all the
time, through the day and night, and the
changing weather and the changing light.
The stars are his friendly beacons; the sun
is his watch and guide. The wind is never
out of his thoughts; sometimes it caresses
Him and sometimes it threatens him; and in
the whimper or the wail of it lie knows there
is danger or distress.

So it has always been with me, though I
put it down in poor words. We do not speak
of these things. It is the first time that I
have uttered them, and they seem a little
foolish now that they are written. No doubt
a writing man would find much to tell about
the beauty of the sea. We take all that for

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 58

granted, and yet I think we feel it. I should
like to tell of the great sunsets which fired
the sky when we plunged southward and
westward, of those colours, too rich and too
deep for words, which flared up as the sun
sank down and paved our way with gold and
crimson and rose pink, and emerald and
amethyst and topaz and a thousand flower
tints. Then the sky was a divinely wonder¬
ful ocean of beauty across which there sailed
fairy ships with golden sails spread, and birds
of paradise with magic wings of colour, and
enchanted islands with mountains of precious
gems and flame-tipped peaks.

I should like to describe some of these
nights when I was officer of the watch pacing
the deck, when the dark figure of Larose
stood forward in the bows and when Agn&s
stood at the helm. I suppose some men
would make poetry of these nights, and write
them down in music. I can do nothing but
say that the whole world of waters around
us was flooded with a silver light and that
our keel left behind a long wake of flashing

54 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

phosphorescence, where every one of those
myriads of animalcula? lit its tiny lamp and
glowed with all the brightness of its little
soul. That is but feeble, poverty-stricken
language, and I pray you not to laugh at a
seaman who has gone beyond his depths!

We saw but few ships on the voyage.
For many days together we seemed to be
alone in the South Atlantic. But after we
had crossed the line we passed near a big
sailing-ship called the Australia. I suppose a
landsman can hardly understand the excite¬
ment that comes to one on a long voyage
when one gets within hail of another vessel.
In a little while the two ships will have
passed and disappeared beyond each others
ken, but during the time when the sails are
within sight there is a sense of companionship
which is comforting, and though our words
do not carry from one deck to another, we
have conversation and are sociable.

We hailed the Australia , and knowing that
the first question asked by every ship is,
‘ How far from your hist port ? ’ we got our

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 55

answer ready, and in big white letters painted
on a board, showed the words 4 twenty-eight
days from Start Point.’ We waited for the
answering news which would tell us how
near we were to ltio, if the wind held in our
favour. But we saw the captain throw up
his hands with a gesture of amazement and,
perhaps, of incredulity, and he gave us
no message. I think he believed we were
4 drawing the long bow ' at him, for truth to
tell we had had luck with us all the way, and
for a small boat like ours it was something
like a record run.

We did not make Rio, however, so quickly
as we had hoped, for a calm made our sails
hang limp for two days, and there was not
a breath of wind to carry us into port.

It was vexatious to lie outside in that list-
less way, for I need hardly say that we were
eager to stretch our legs a little, and to get
into that fair harbour where the gaiety of
civilised life in the white city beyond would
be a very pleasant change to the long spell
we had had on the J. 2?. Charcot since we

5G

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

left Madeira. At last we whistled up a breeze
and ran right ahead into anchorage.

Here all rqy pleasure was spoilt for a little
while by a foolish accident. I was looking
to the sails which the men were lowering,
and had my hand, through sheer carelessness,
on the cogwheel of the winch. Suddenly the .
cable chains tightened as the boat dragged
upon them, and when the winch turned my
hand was caught by the teeth of the cog¬
wheel. It was quite dark, so that neither
my brother nor the sailors saw what was the
matter with me when I cried out. I had to
explain, and shout to them to turn the wheel
the other way. When my hand was released
I found that the flesh was torn into strips.

I bound it up as best I could, and next day
went ashore and showed my wounds to a
French doctor, who stitched them up very
skilfully. But it was a long time before my
hand healed, and I shall bear the scar as long
as I live.

W e were twelve days at Rio and took on
board more water and fresh fruit. By good

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 57

luck and the generosity of good friends we
escaped all harbour dues, which otherwise
would have been a heavy tax upon us. The

French Consul to whom we paid our respects
and told our story went to the Chief Customs

Officer of Rio, and when he told him the

character and object of our voyage, he was
kind enough to waive all fees. Although
we had a good time at Rio, we slept every
night on board in our close little cabin, and
it was here that we enjoyed our Christmas
dinner, which was made very happy by the
receipt of letters from home, the last we
could hope to get for eighteen months or

more.

In honour of the day my brother Henri,
who is a first-class cook, relieved Esnault of
some of his duties—there were painful dis¬
coveries in the galley !—and made a pudding
which was not only enjoyable at the time,
but a delightful memory. Larose was in
the seventh heaven, and his eyes were more
dreamy than ever when he sat in front of
his second helping and smiled at the glory

58 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

of what had gone before. His only regret
was that all good things come to an end.

We also cracked a good bottle of wine and
drank to the success of our little venture and
to the dear people at home. A few days
later we said farewell to Rio de Janeiro with
its hill-climbing city girdled by green forests
and sheltered by great mountain ranges, with
its gay people and its beautiful women and
its spacious streets. We had lived very
quietly on our boat, seeing the sights by
day, but unknown to all the French resi¬
dents, save the gallant French Consul who
had saved us the harbour dues. I have been
told lately by Dr. Charcot that when he
passed that way a year later and spoke of
the little French fishing ketch which had .
lain in the harbour before going on the long
trail to Melbourne, the French community
was astonished.

‘ If only we had known ! ’ they said.

But, after all, we did not want to be feted.
Our work lay ahead of us and we had done
nothing to talk about. It was on the 1st

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 59

of January 1908 that we sailed out of the
harbour of Rio between the two great head¬
lands and past the Sugar Loaf, and from
that date our luck changed. It was not long

before the J. B . Charcot was put to a severe
test.

3

60 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

CHAPTER III

‘ From our shrouds

We view a rising land, like distant clouds ;

The mountain-tops confirm the pleasing sight
And curling smoke ascending from their height.

The canvas falls ; their oars the sailors ply;

From the rude strokes the whirling waters fly.’

Virgil.

One morning after we had left Rio I said to
Bontemps the boatswain :

‘ It is a strange thing, my friend, but there
does not seem to be a single rat on this ship.’

I saw a curious, frightened look creep into
the eyes of that sturdy seaman.

‘ No,’ he said in a most mournful way.
‘No, Captain, that is very unlucky for us. I
am sore afraid we have seen the last of our
good fortune.’

I knew what was passing through his
mind. That rats leave a sinking ship is a
proverb in all language of the sea, and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 61

because we had no rats on board, Bontemps
believed that we were doomed. I laughed
at him, and called him a superstitious old
rogue, but he was not to be teased into
cheerfulness, and he went about his work
moodily and muttering dismal forebodings.

Then a little tragedy happened which I

am sure confirmed his belief in our unlucky

destiny. I have mentioned our black one-

eyed cat. A black cat on board is supposed

to charm away the evil spirits that call a

ship to destruction, and all had gone well, or

pretty well, as long as Puss-in-Boots patrolled

the deck or climbed on to the boom to make

faces at the sea-birds, or sat in the bows like

a little black figure-head. But soon after

we had left Rio the cat had a fatal accident.

It was playing up on one of the rails, when

it suddenly conceived the idea of jumping to

the deck. It sprang, but too far out, and

dropped into the sea, where it was quickly

drowned before we could even attempt a
rescue.

To Bontemps it seemed like the last nail

62 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

in our coffin, and he was not at all surprised
when we were overtaken by a terrific storm.
We took most of our canvas down and lay
to, drifting out of our course with bare
sticks. The sea was mountains high, and as
those great rolling waves came tearing towards
us, the little J. B. Charcot plunged down into
deep valleys, and then surged up again and
was shaken like a rat on the summits of
those water-mountains before lurching for¬
ward again into the depths.

It was at midnight, just as I was going off
watch when the storm began, and it blew
for twenty-four hours. The wind came
raging at us as though invisible monsters
were seeking to devour us. One could hear
each gust coming with a loud booming, and
as it caught us each rope was lashed like a
whip and the furies shrieked about the ship.
The little «/. B. Charcot was quivering and
trembling. Each timber was strained as she
staggered and lurched and plunged, buffeted
on port side and starboard by a wind that
came all ways at once.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 63

It was not an ordinary storm but a cyclone
sweeping round in a circle of hundreds of
miles in circumference. Then suddenly, at
ten o’clock on the following night, the wind
died down. After the wild tumult we were
in a dead calm. We stood in the heart
of the cyclone, in the calm centre of a
hurricane which was still whirling around
miles away. It was indeed the strangest,
most uncanny thing to be becalmed in the
middle of that cyclone, to see the ropes run
slack, and the canvas hang limp, and to
feel hardly a breath of wind upon our faces.
We had not been able to hear our own
voices in the gale, but now, when we spoke,
our words startled our own ears, and a pro¬
found silence brooded around us.

It is the ominous silence that haunts
one with superstitious fears. Even Patrick
seemed to be scared at the mystery of it,
and listened intently with pricked ears, and
whined as he sniffed over the bulwarks and
stared into the darkness. This dead calm
lasted until 4 a.m. Then a buffet of wind

64 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

smacked us with a staggering blow, and the
silence was broken by the low dull roar of
the advancing storm, and our small ship
seemed to groan and shudder with pitiful
terror. We had left the calm centre of the
cyclone and the fury was upon us again.

For five days the storm raged and we
shipped heavy seas, and there were moments
when death seemed very close to us. But
the J. B. Charcot was a good boat. Her
courage and strength were tried and proved.
My brother and I were proud of her. I
was a little proud of myself, for my choice
of that old hull lying dry-beached in
Boulogne had been a sound one. She
leaked a little but not much, and though we
pumped at every watch we did not discover
much water in the hold. Oak-built by
good shipwrights, the timbers of this fishing
ketch were sturdy and strong and seaworthy.
My anxiety during those days and nights
of storm was rewarded by the consoling
knowledge that the J ’. B . Charcot had come
through without damage and without shak-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 65

ing our confidence in the prospects of land¬
ing with dry clothes on the Island of Deso¬
lation. We should not have to swim to those
uninhabited rocks!

After the storm we rode, on a buoyant
keel, over the great blue sea, with our wings
full spread and soaring forwards like a hom¬
ing bird. We were bound for Tristan da
Cunha, our last resting-place on the road to

Kerguelen, six thousand miles further on the
trail.

Twenty days from Rio we sighted the

three islands of that lonely group out in the

South Atlantic, and saw rising clear into the

blue sky the snow-capped summit of that

extinct volcano which soars 7640 feet above

the cliffs and the green slopes of the grass-
grown plateau.

When the J. B. Charcot neared these
islands we first tried to effect a landing on
the one called Inaccessible. We launched
one of our light flat-bottomed boats and
pulled towards shore, but seeing the surf
beating on the narrow beach at the foot of

G6 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

a huge cliff, and having no mind to smash
our craft and to lose our lives on such a
coast, we returned to our ship.

By this time we had been seen by the
people of Tristan, and several men, belonging
to that farthest and loneliest outpost of the
great British Empire, came out to greet us
in two canvas boats.

The sea was too heavy for them to come
aboard, but as they passed close alongside
one of them called out in English of a
strange dialect, as it seemed to my brother,
that we should do well to put out further
from the coast for the night. I knew enough
of dirty weather on a lee shore to appreciate
the value of his advice. Then, since con¬
versation between us and the men in the
tossing boats was difficult, we let over in a
bottle a message for the people with whom we
hoped to make friends, and having seen them

pick it up, stood out to sea.

YVe were in need of fresh meat and green
stuff to enliven our daily menu of preserved
food, and it seemed to us that the people of

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 67

Tristan da Cunha would be glad to make a
fair exchange for articles for which they also
must be yearning. In our bottle-message,
therefore, we gave a list of the things we
were willing to let them have, articles which
in a village without shops and beyond the
reach of parcels post they could only get
from visiting vessels—such as gunpowder,
salt, sugar and tea,—and asked them to let
us have in exchange sheep, poultry, potatoes,'
and other produce which we knew from our
books were obtainable on the island.

We were not entirely ignorant of Tristan
and its people and its ways, for during our
passage we had studied one or two Blue-books
giving reports from ships that had touched
at the island, and this had aroused great
curiosity in us to meet this little colony of
voluntary Robinson Crusoes, who seem to
be as happy as the day is long on a rock
which affords them none of those amuse¬
ments, luxuries, and comforts of life which
seem so necessary to civilised men and
women. We were eager to make acquaint-

«8 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ance with them, to see the houses they had
built up, to know how they worked and lived,
and to study the characteristics of families
who were bound together by close kinship
in a commonwealth without distinction of
class or property.

As I have said, we stood out to sea for
the night. Next day we found ourselves
becalmed almost out of sight of land. There
we lay all day, and our patience was severely
taxed. Henri and I were looking forward
to getting new knowledge of strange people.
But other members of the crew were prompted
by different motives.

When Larose heard of the message en¬
closed in the bottle, our request for sheep
and poultry seemed to him the most reason¬
able thing we had done for many a long day.-
He thoroughly approved of this method of
barter, and would, I am sure, have given
away all our ship’s tools in return for a nice
plump sheep or a well-fed duck. The vision
of such things made his mouth water, for he
had the explorer’s instinct, and was devoted

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 69

to the acquisition of new experiences in the
nature of food.

Agn&s practised a few tunes on his accor¬
dion in order to do himself justice before a
greater audience than he could find on ship¬
board.

Esnault the cook liked the notion of
stretching his legs outside his galley, though
he anticipated heavier work when the live¬
stock was brought on board.

Only Bontemps accepted the situation
philosophically, as an old sailor who has no¬
thing more to see and to admire in this world
so wide, and to whom the enforced idleness
of a calm is part of the day’s work. In any
case it was doubtful whether there was a
tobacconists shop in Tristan, so what use
had the island for him ?

It was not until the following morning
that a breeze sprang up which enabled us to
again stand in towards the island. Putting
an empty cask into our biggest boat so that
I might get a fresh supply of water, I was
rowed ashore by Agnks and Larose.

70 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

As I went near I could see that the in¬
habited and cultivated portion of the island
was a strip of land at the north-west corner,
eight or nine miles long and of an average
width of one and a half miles, formed, as I
found afterwards, by an overflow of lava from
the crater lips. This is really the only part
of the island of any use to mankind. The

r

rest of it, twenty-one miles round, is grim
and barren and rugged. There is no harbour,
but a broad belt of seaweed growing off the
shore at a distance of about two miles serves
in a measure as a natural breakwater. The
landing-place is near a cascade which tumbles
down that side of the cliff and rushes across
the shingly beach in white foam. On the
top of the line of low cliffs I could see grassy
meadow-lands, very cool and green to the
eye, with a cluster of cottages, and beyond
mountain slopes, leading the vision to the
high conical peak which is the centre of the
island.

While I had been taking in these details
we had neared the beach and saw that twenty

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 71

men had gathered there to drag in our boat
as it was washed ashore by the dangerous
breakers.

They were a curious-looking crowd, rough
and picturesque, but as regards their clothes
not unlike the fisher-folk of my own native
Brittany. Most of them wore blue cotton
jackets and trousers, obtained, it seemed, from
American whalers. On their feet they wore
rough moccasins made from bullock-skin,
and among the first things they asked for
were any old leather shoes that we could
spare. They gave us a hearty welcome when
we jumped out of the boats, and although
at tha^ time I spoke very little English, we
had no difficulty in getting on excellent
terms with each other. They wrung me re¬
peatedly by the hand, as though it were a
delight to them to see a fresh face. They
asked me where I had come from, and were
fairly amazed when they heard that we had

voyaged so many thousand miles since leaving
Brixham Harbour in England.

‘ In that little boat ? ’ they cried. ‘ How is

72 1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

it that you were not shipwrecked ? We
would not trust ourselves upon such a tiny
thing.’

Larose and Agnes were greeted by them
with equal cordiality, although those two
knew no more English than ‘Yes’ and ‘All
right! ’

I could see no real sign of physical de¬
generation and none of mental decadence
among these men, in spite of the absolute
necessity among them of intermarrying to a
degree which in civilised lands would be re¬
garded as highly dangerous. It is true that
some of them were of small stature and
rather thin, but even these appeared wiry and
active. One man among them was distin¬
guished by a really fine physique. He stood
up tall and broad, and carried himself with
an outward air of dignity and almost of com¬
mand. It seemed to me, by the way in
which the others behaved to him and by
the authoritative way in which he spoke to
us on the subject of barter and exchange,
that he was in the position of chief. In-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 73

deed I asked who was the chief but they
said they had none, for all were equal.

I he man introduced himself, however, by
the name of Andreas Ripetto, and asked
whether I would go to his house and take
a little meal with his wife and family.

I was, of course, delighted to accept this
invitation, and on the way up from the land¬
ing-place my new friend told me that he
had been shipwrecked on Tristan from the
Italia about fourteen years ago. He was a
Genoese by birth, and with a fellow-shipmate,
Gaetano Land'rello, he had been cast ashore.’
He had decided at once that this island was
to be his home, not because it was the most
attractive spot in the world, but because it
was dry land and could not very well be
wrecked. Other ships had touched the
island since he had been domiciled there,
and he had had an opportunity of getting
away. But he had declined all such offers.
•Never again, he said, would he put foot

upon the deck of a vessel after one deliver¬
ance from death by drowning!

74 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

This seemed to me strange, for the man
told me that he had served on an Italian
man-of-war in his youth, and I could not
understand that a sailor by profession should
have such a dread of the sea.

‘I am now a married man, he said, ‘and
speak English, as you will see, almost like
my native tongue. My wife is a good
woman, like all of them here, and I am very
happy as the father of a very fine family.
After all, what more does a man want? I
have my little home. There is enough to eat,
the sky is above my head, and the good God
is in His heaven, as close to us here as in my
native Genoa.’

As a sailor myself it seemed to me pitiful,
and indeed incredible, that a fine man like
this, trained to the sea, should moulder his
life away on a barren rock when he might be
following the free and open life which to my
mind is the best in the world. Chacun a son
^oiit!

All the men who had helped to drag us
through the surf were following behind, and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 75

I heard their laughter as they spoke incom¬
prehensible words to my two comrades. Our
arrival had brought other inhabitants down
from their cottages to gaze at us. Among
them were many women and children. The
little ones were pretty and fairy-like in
clean, white calico frocks, with white woollen
stockings and small calf-skin shoes, which
gave them, as they danced around us, the
appearance of those little novices of the corps
de ballet of whom one sees pictures in the
illustrated papers, or on the boards of a
French operetta. Indeed, this impression
was vivid to my mind, because the scene
itself was no unfitting stage for a fairy play.
The green meadow in the background, a
waterfall between its leafy banks, the white
surf breaking on the shore beyond, the sun¬
light shedding a rich golden glow upon the

island, were almost unreal in its effect upon
-my senses.

The women were by no means unattrac¬
tive, though I do not pretend to be a judge
of feminine beauty. Though one or two of

76 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

them showed traces of negro blood, having
slightly fuzzy hair and sallow complexions,
due, as I was afterwards told, to some
coloured women who had been shipped from
St. Helena and the Cape to become the wives
of some of the first settlers, the others were
of the fair Scandinavian type, and even among
those who had been ‘touched with the tar¬
brush ’ there was no sign of negroid lips or
other characteristics of the coloured races.
Many of them had flaxen hair, oval faces,
with narrow aquiline noses and rather thin,
well-formed lips such as one may see in
England or Denmark.

They are not exempt from the tempta¬
tions of beautifying their personal appearance,
which beset all daughters of Eve. They are

o •

especially fond of gay colours, and it was
delightful to see how they had made use of
any coloured rag which they had been able to
obtain from passing or shipwrecked vessels.
For instance, on their heads were cotton
handkerchiefs such as sailors keep in their
lockers, and here and there the blouse and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

77

skirt, which are their usual garments, were
made of the coloured striped shirts which
seamen can buy in most ports.

In expression they were not exactly sad or
melancholy, but their eyes had a wistful look
as they gazed at us, and some of the young
men and children were obviously shy and
embarrassed when I happened to look their
way. The children were all bright and
cheerful, and their parents were obviously
contented with their lot and on good terms
with each other. As long as I was in the
island I heard no quarrelling voices, and saw
no sign of ill-temper.

As Andreas Ripetto led me up the hill, we
came in sight of the little straggling group of
cottages, about fifteen or sixteen in number,
which are dotted about on either side of the
rivulet which feeds the cascade. I noticed
that they were built of a soft stone, which I
was told was brought from the higher slopes
of the mountain—an arduous labour. They
were built more or less on the same plan-
one story high under a thatched roof, and

78 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

about 30 feet long by 10 broad. Attached
to each house was a pen enclosed by a stone
wall, in which the people kept their sheep,
calves, and other live stock. Most of them
also had small outhouses for lumber. I was
pleased to see that they were of a cleanly dis¬
position, and that no unsightly or evil-smell¬
ing heaps of refuse were allowed near the
dwelling-places. It amused me to notice the
pigs roaming about in a free-and-easy way.
Of these beasts, said Ripetto, there were
about forty on the island.

Outside one of the cottages was a wagon
drawn by two yoked oxen. It was a small,
roughly built affair on solid wheels, and it
had been brought out to carry up from the
shore any stores we might be in a position to
offer.

It seemed to me at first that there was a
flower garden in front of each cottage, but
looking over the wall I saw that nothing grew
but long tussock grass.

‘ What on earth do you grow that for
here ? * I asked, and Ripetto told me that it

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 70

was cultivated for the purpose of repairing
their thatched roofs. I am bound to say the
thatch was rather primitive, and tufts of long
grass grew out of it.

Ripetto welcomed us across his threshold,
and introduced me into the bosom of his
family. Mrs. Ripetto was a buxom lady
anxious to feed me, welcome me, and make
me thoroughly at home, and his brood of
children had something of an Italian look,
although they spoke the English tongue.
I here were two rooms in this small house,
and most of the woodwork had been obtained
from ships wrecked on the rocky coast. I
observed, for example, a piece of wood from
a ship’s stern in one of the rooms, and I could
clearly read the name Mabel Clarke.

Ripetto, following my glance, answered my
unspoken question:

* is a bit of an American boat, which
went to pieces here in ’77.* She was bound
from Liverpool to Hong-Kong with coal
when she struck on our rocks, and two
people were drowned before we went out to

80 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the rescue of the crew. It was a hard
struggle to get out through the heavy
breakers, but they brought off the survivors,
and, at a good deal of sacrifice to themselves,
fed and housed them until October in the
following year. Naturally this was a big
strain on the resources of the island, for as a
rule it is as much as we can do to keep our
own souls and bodies together. Finally an
American man-of-war, the Essex, called and
took them away. Then in February 1880
the English man-of-war Comus brought our
people, from the Yankee Government, a good
many useful presents as a reward for what
had been done. A few months later another
English vessel, the Miranda , brought to our
old friend, William Green, a medal from
the Shipwrecked Mariners. Society. He was
proud of it, I can tell you ! It is not often
the outside world takes such an interest in
Tristan. It did us a bit of good too. One
of my first memories is H.M.S. Raleigh
bringing £100 worth of stores to the island in
August '94 as a present from the Britishers.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 81

It was to recognise the services of the Tristan
folk when the Allen Shaw was wrecked in
March of the year before.’

Ripetto had a good memory for the few

historical events that Tristan had ever
known.

I had brought a bottle of wine and some
cakes along with me as a little offering of
courtesy to my hosts. They were immensely
pleased, and were happy to give me tea. A
little fuss took place which I noticed with
quiet amusement. Some one left the cot¬
tage, and Ripetto, in his simple way, told
me that they had sent to borrow the only
bread recently baked in the island, which
belonged to the parson and his wife.

I had a long conversation with my new
friend in rather halting English, eked out by
a httle French, of which Ripetto had a small
vocabulary, and I asked him several questions
about the way of life in Tristan.

Their chief hardship is the getting of wood
from the distant hills, as they have already
cut down all those stunted trees which grew

82

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

near their settlement. The wood has to be
gathered six miles from their homes, rolled
down the mountains, and loaded on to the
bullock wagons. I formed the impression
that one of these days they will have to leave
the island altogether for lack of fuel. I
remember that one of my questions was
‘ Do you ever quarrel ? ’ Ripetto laughed and
said, ‘The men never; we live like brothers.
But women, of course, will have their little
tiffs.’

We spent some days in Tristan, during
which time I learnt a good deal about the
island and its little population, and made
friends with the clergyman and his wife, Mr.
and Mrs. Barrow, who were charming people
and most kind and hospitable. Larose had
already picked up an acquaintance with them,
for while I had been taking tea with the
Ripettos he had by some means or other
found his way to that abode, where he enjoyed
himself vastly. I think my first meal in the
clergymans home deserves to be put on
record, for it is one of my delightful memories.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 83

The following is the menu :—

Leg of mutton
Potatoes
Limejuice
Tea.

The Hotel Metropole of any capital in
Europe could not have provided a banquet
which would have given more satisfaction
than this modest meal after my long spell
on ship’s victuals.

Mr. Barrow told me that he had come to
the island as a kind of pious pilgrimage. He
had often heard of the generous and kindly
way in which the islanders had devoted
themselves to the care of shipwrecked men
and women, and he determined to go to
them and live among them in order that he
might be their teacher and give them Christian
ministrations. From this good clergyman I
obtained a great deal of interesting informa¬
tion about the history of Tristan and the life
of the islanders, which amplified what I had

already learnt from the reports of British
seamen.

84

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

The Tristan da Cunha islands are part of a
long submarine range which divides the floor
of the Atlantic Ocean. This range, or ridge,
is studded with volcanoes. Those of Tristan,
St. Helena, Ascension and St. Paul have been
extinct for thousands of years, while Teneriffe
and the Azores are slumbering, and those in
Iceland still in an active state.

The Tristan group seems to have been
discovered early in the sixteenth century by
the gallant Portuguese navigators, and the
flrst mention of them, as far as we know,
was in a letter dated August 1506 from
Pedro Coresmo to the King of Portugal, in
which he says that he has gone to Mozam¬
bique to wait for his friend Tristaode Qunha.
In other Portuguese works the name is spelt
Tristan da Cunha, so that I suppose this is
the correct spelling of the island, and not
Tristan d’Acunha as it is often written. It
is interesting to me to know that the first
man to land on Tristan was a Frenchman
named D’Etchevery, in a boat called L'Etoile
du Matin (The Morning Star) in 1767. Seven

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 85

years before, however, an English seaman
named Captain Gamaliel Nightingale visited
Nightingale Island, to which he gave his own
name.

Some seal-hunters, in a boat called the
Industry, with Captain John Patten, were
the first human beings to inhabit Tristan for
a time. They landed in August 1790, and
stayed there till the following April, during
which time they obtained no less than five
thousand seal skins which they sold in the
China market at an enormous profit.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century
3 named Thomas Currie landed on

Tristan and lived like Robinson Crusoe
(though he had no man Friday) until he was
joined by a strange being called Captain
Jonathan Lambert (accompanied by a man
named Williams), who is described as late of
Salem, of the United States of America,
mariner and citizen thereof.

On the 7th of February 1811, he was
pleased to constitute himself a «Sovereign
Power,’ and took absolute possession of ‘ the

86 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

islands of Tristan da Cunha, so-called, namely
the great island and the other two known by
the names of Inaccessible and Nightingale
Islands ’ solely and for his heirs for ever,
‘ grounding my right and claim on the rational
and sure ground of absolute occupancy.' He
determined that 4 the said islands shall for the
future be denominated the Islands of Refresh¬
ment, the great island bearing that name in
particular, and the landing-place on the north
to the eastof the cascade’ (whereI had been met
by Ripetto and his friends) ‘ to be called Recep¬
tion, which shall be my place of residence.’

Captain Lambert further enlightened the
world by explaining that ‘ the cause of the
said act originated in the desire and deter¬
mination of preparing myself and family a
home where I can enjoy life without the em¬
barrassments which have constantly attended
me, and procure for us an interest and pro¬
perty by means of which a competence may
be for ever secured, and remain, if possible,
far removed beyond the reach of chicanery
and ordinary misfortune.’

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 87

All these noble aspirations were doomed to

be for ever unfulfilled, and no little Lamberts

played about the ‘ Refreshment Islands,’ for

one bad day the American went out fishing

with his man Williams, and never returned

to what he was pleased to call his ‘ Sovereign

International State.’ Currie remained king

of all he surveyed, but in May of 1815 he was

joined by two men named John Tankard and

John Talsen, who came off from a ship called

the Bengal Merchant . They were of an

agricultural turn of mind, and cultivated

wheat and oats and sundry vegetables with

success, and bred pigs from a wild stock

descended from a few swine left by a passing

vessel. During the American War of 1812 to

1815, the United States used Tristan as a

base from which to pounce out on British

sailing ships homeward bound, and it was

this which first brought those islands under

the official notice of the English Govern¬
ment.

In September 1815 they were taken over
as dependencies of the Cape of Good Hope

88 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

in the name of King George the Third, and
were garrisoned by a young lieutenant named
Rich, in command of a lieutenant of marines,
four midshipmen, and thirteen men. They
kept themselves busy in their exile by work
and sport, building huts, cutting down trees,
fishing, and seal-hunting, until they were
relieved by a detachment from the Cape of
Good Hope garrison consisting of four officers,
three non-commissioned officers, and thirty-
four rank and file of the 21st Light Dragoons,
60th and 72nd Regiments, all under com¬
mand of Captain Abraham Josias Cloete, of
the 21st Light Dragoons, ‘a young officer
of considerable talent and acquirements, and
in every respect trustworthy.*

At this time the only residents on the
island, apart from the troops, were Thomas
Currie and a Spaniard named Bastiano
Comilla. The Englishman had no objection
to the island becoming a British possession,
especially as no encroachment was made on
his own ground of seven acres. Captain
Cloete was an energetic fellow, and built forts

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 89

to command the entrance to Falmouth Bay
and Exmouth Bay, and a road leading up
from the beach to his camp, which was on
the site of the present settlement.

All this work was rendered futile by the
decision of Lord Bathurst in 1817 to with¬
draw the garrison on the island. The object
in stationing troops there at all was to keep
a sharp lookout for any French adventurers
who might attempt to rescue Napoleon from
St. Helena, but the truth was that the
soldiers at Tristan were about as much use

for that purpose as if they had been in
Piccadilly.

A few men preferred to remain when
the garrison left, and these were joined by
other people who landed or were wrecked
upon the island. For example, in December
1820 three more were wrecked on Tristan
from the Sarah, and in July 1821 the crew
of the Blendon Hall were cast upon In¬
accessible Island, from which they were
rescued by an old corporal named Glass,
who had remained with his wife and

90 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

children on the departure of the troops. In
1826 there were seven men and two children
living together on this desolate island, and
five coloured women were fetched from St.
Helena to marry the five bachelors.

Among these early inhabitants of Tristan
were the two men who have given their names
to so many descendants now living there—
Cotton, an old man-of-wars-man, who for three
years had stood guard over Napoleon at
Longwood, and Swain, who had served on
board the Victory , and into whose arms
Nelson fell mortally wounded by the shot
from the French battleship. In 1836, Peter
William Green, a native of Amsterdam, was
cast ashore at Tristan, and when Glass and
Cotton died he became the leading man in
the island.

So the years passed, and the families of the
first settlers grew up and married among
themselves and had families of their own.
Occasionally they were reinforced by some
involuntary visitor cast up with the wreck¬
age of a good ship, and rejoiced to find

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 91

such friendly help stretched out to him.
Gradually he came to reg&rd the island as his
home, taking one of the women for his wife,
and losing all desire to get back to civilisa¬
tion when a passing ship put the opportunity
within his grasp.

In 1867 the Duke of Edinburgh visited the
island, and henceforth the settlement was
called by his name.

So the history of Tristan may be written,
and almost each chapter is a tale of ship¬
wreck. The people’s blood became mixed by
descent from sailors of several races—English,
Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish, Italian, and
French so that, as I have said, the negro
strain through the women of St. Helena was
not predominant. When the Challenger Ex¬
pedition touched at Tristan in 1878 and
surveyed the coasts, the population numbered
eighty-four, and although sometimes this was
increased by new births, and sometimes almost
wiped out by an occasional exodus of the
younger folk, who went to the Cape of Good

Hope or elsewhere, it was almost the exact

4

02

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

number of souls still living on Tristan when I
visited them in 1907.

I learnt from Mr. Barrow, the clergyman,
that when Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was the
English Colonial Minister, an offer was made
to the islanders to remove them from their
isolated position and convey them at the
Governments expense to the Cape of Good
Hope. It was put before them by a commis¬
sioner named Mr. Tooke, conveyed to Tristan
on the Odin by Commander Pearce. They
were given twenty-four hours in which to
make up their minds, and after much discussion
three families decided that it would be a good
thing to leave, seven families decided to
remain, and one family was neutral and did
not vote. In consequence of this Mr. Tooke
withdrew the offer of the Government.

The offer in any case seemed to me a little
strange, for it appears to me unnecessary to
tempt people away from a little common¬
wealth in which, as I can personally testify,
they seem contented and cheerful, and where
they are able to render most valuable assist-

15.000 MILES IN A KETCH 93

I ance to those unfortunate vessels which so
often come to grief on their surf-beaten tocks.

, Since my visit I have been interested to hear
i that in the report of a British naval officer,
who called at the island in the Thrush in
1903, the suggestion has been made that,
should a large carrying trade be established
between South America and the Cape, the
island would be of value as an intermediate
station for wireless telegraphy.

It will certainly be a remarkable change if
that suggestion is ever carried out, for where¬
as at present the Tristan islanders are entirely
without news of the world, except when stray
facts are told to them by vessels which happen
to pass their way, they would then be in daily
communication with the great throbbing life
in the centres of civilisation. Perhaps it
would disturb that perfect tranquillity of
mind which at present prevails in Tristan
da Cunha!

Mr. Barrow, the clergyman, gave me some
interesting details of his life on the island.
The people welcomed them most warmly, and

94

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

were delighted at the visit of the new chap¬
lain and his wife. They at once set apart a
house as church and school, a widow named
Lucy Green (whose husband was a descendant
of the Amsterdam mariner who had been
shipwrecked there in 183G) turning out of her
little dwelling-place and going to live with
relatives. Another woman, Hetty Cotton,
gave up her house for the clergyman and his
wife to use as their own.

The seventeen families on the island took it
in turn to supply their pastor weekly with
meat, milk, potatoes, and firewood, and, when¬
ever possible, with fish, butter, and eggs. The
winter after Mr. Harrows arrival w T as a hard
one, and the potato stock ran short owing to
the crops being blighted by the wind. They
also lost a great number of their live stock, no
fewer than three hundred and seventy-one
cattle having died of starvation from June to
November of that year.

In the time of the last chaplain, Mr. Dodg-
son, the brother, I am told, of Mr. Lewis
Carroll, who wrote a famous book called

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 95

Alice in Wonderland , there was a plague of
rats which threatened to destroy the whole
population by eating up all their susten¬
ance.

They came to Tristan on a schooner called
the Henry B. Paul , which was run ashore on
the far side of the island, four miles away
from cultivated ground. The islanders ignored
the clergyman’s plea that these ship rats
should be at once exterminated, believing
that they would not give trouble, as they
were so far away.

In the course of a few months, during
which they bred tremendously, the vanguard
of an army of rats appeared among the potato
fields and devoured everything on their march.
Then with reinforcements they turned to the
wheatfields and devoured the corn. With
relentless ferocity they next attacked the
rabbits, which were also prolific in the island,
and waxed fat upon their prey. Now they
invaded the settlement itself, and seemed to
have no fear of the human inhabitants, who
on their side had become panic-stricken.

96 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

It reminds one of the Pied Piper of Ham-
elin. Grey rats, brown rats, fathers and
mothers, uncles and cousins, fat old fellows,
and frisky youngsters came in battalions to
the houses of the Tristan folk, scrambling
over the stone walls, into the tussock gardens
and the cattle-pens, getting into the lumber
sheds, and invading the front parlours and the
back bedrooms of the stone-built cottages.
On one occasion, when Mr. Dodgson was
going to bed, he saw what he imagined to be
his black kitten on the bed, but putting out
his hand to stroke it, found that his hand had
touched the cold, hairy body of an enormous
rat who had found his bed a comfortable
resting-place. Cats were imported into the
island to exterminate this plague, but the rats
exterminated the cats!

At the present day there are still a great
number of rats on Tristan da Cunha, but
the inhabitants say that they have dwindled
in numbers, and are no longer such a dan¬
gerous pest. Probably they have died out
for want of food when they were beaten out

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 97

of the settlement. Even now, however, the
islanders are unable to grow grain on this
account.

The Tristan islanders are best described
as farmers. The men spend their time tend¬
ing their potato-patches, felling trees, and
bringing wood in for fuel, shearing the sheep,
tending the cattle and goats, fishing, and
making bullock-hide moccasins, which, on the
sharp rocks of the island, last only a few
weeks. The women and girls are busy with
washing, cooking, mending, spinning, knit¬
ting, milking and churning.

The cattle are, of course, the most important
property of the islanders, being useful for their
meat, hides, milk, and as beasts of burden.
The present number is, 1 believe, about four
hundred, but the islanders are rather vague
as to the exact numbers, because the animals
wander away to the mountain slopes. It is
a custom to slaughter in the autumn and
salt down for winter use. The animals, it is
said, are decreasing in size, and now weigh
about 800 lbs., instead of 1400 lbs. as formerly.

98

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

The breed is rather mixed, but thev are in fair

r

condition.

Several attempts have been made to estab¬
lish a cattle trade with St. Helena, Madeira
and the Cape, but without success. It was
in February 1880 that the first shipment
was made, twenty-seven bullocks being sent
to St. Helena. A second cargo was sent
safely, but the next two vessels in which
it was hoped to ship cattle were wrecked
on the island through careless navigation, as
the islanders contend. After that one or
two more shipments were made, but frequent
wrecks gave the island a bad name, and all
hope of profit was killed by the consequent
high freights and insurance. This was a
great disappointment to the Tristan folk,
because any regular trade with the outside
world, however small, would have ensured
regular supplies of those commodities which
the people are unable to raise for themselves.

A further effort was made in 1903 by a
Mr. Beetham, one of the settlers who went to
Cape Town on the Thrush , to secure a

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 99

schooner for use in the cattle trade, but for
some reason he abandoned the scheme and
returned to his home in America.

The men have five boats, made from
wreckage and the wood of the stunted island
trees and covered with canvas. To the eye
of a sailor they are handy little craft, broader
and shorter than a whale-boat. I was not
surprised to hear them say that they would
venture out to sea as much as fifteen miles to
visit a passing vessel, and in good weather
they would cross to Inaccessible and Night¬
ingale Islands to gather albatross eggs. This
is practically the only excitement which life
on this island affords, except when some of
the cattle that have broken away and taken to

the mountains become savage and dangerous,
and have to be shot.

Since they sometimes spend two years
without seeing a passing vessel, they have to
depend to a very great extent on the pro¬
duce of the island. For food they have beef,
mutton, pork, poultry, milk, butter, eggs, fish
and potatoes—not at all a bad diet, with the

4 “

100 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

exception of bread. All grain, dour and
groceries, as well as all clothing, except the
socks and stockings which the women and
girls knit, and the moccasins, must be got
from ships. Oil is obtained from sea-elephants
and penguins, and from this candles and a
soap of rather poor quality are made.

A few words about the social economy of
this strange little community will, I think,
he interesting. All their pasture land is held
as common property until a man expresses
the intention of turning a part of it into
cultivation, when he clears and encloses it.
He is then considered the owner of it and
may bequeath it to his children, who retain
it as their own so long as it is kept under
cultivation, but whenever that ceases it is
thrown open and again becomes common
pasture land.

It is agreed that all provisions or any kind
of produce supplied to a ship for the general
use of the crew and passengers are to be
deemed the property of the community, and
the proceeds of the sale in clothing, stores,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 101

or money are equally divided among the
families. To prevent this system acting un¬
fairly each family takes its turn in providing
the supplies demanded.

When Peter Green succeeded Cotton and
Glass, the first of the settlers, he became a
kind of patriarchal governor in Tristan, and,
being a strong-minded old fellow, he took the
lead in everything. As a sign of authority
he used to fiy the Union Jack over his door¬
way, and this old ‘sea-salt’ was authorised
by the Bishop of St. Helena to solemnise
marriages, which no doubt he did in a very
satisfactory manner. After his death there
was no chief of the settlement, and society
resembled the most primitive state of man¬
kind when the family and groups of families
preceded the tribal system.

It will be remembered that when I landed
on Tristan the islanders stated that no one
was chief or governor over them, and doubt¬
less, when any controversy arose, no family
would recognise a central authority who
might impose his will upon them. But in

102 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

working practice, Ripetto, the Genoese sailor,
is the leader, and in American phraseology,
‘what he says goes.’ He is the only man
able to both read and write (some of the
others have been taught to read, but have
not yet acquired anything like fluent pen¬
manship), and being a most intelligent, able
fellow, he is naturally chosen to represent
the views of his people when, as has happened
two or three times, they have sent communi¬
cations to the British Government.

His position, however, is accidental rather
than according to any unwritten law, and,
strictly speaking, the social status of Tristan
da Cunha is a commonwealth of a kind which
has been dreamed of by the philosophers of
all ages, and by our modern Socialists. There
is no hatred, envy or malice among them;
everything is done for the common good;
they render each other brotherly service;
they are free from all the vices of civilisa¬
tion; they worship God in a simple way;
they live very close to Nature, but without
pantheistic superstition; greed and usury are

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 103

unknown among them ; there are no class
distinctions, no rich or poor. Truly, on this
lonely rock in the South Atlantic, we have
a people who belong rather to the Pastoral
Age of the world than to our modern unrest¬
ful life, and who, without theory or politics
or written laws, have reached that state which
has been described by the imaginative writers
of all ages, haunted by the thought of the
decadent morality of the seething cities, as
the Golden Age or the Millennium.

Perhaps it would be good for our theoreti¬
cal gentlemen to organise an expedition to
Tristan to see how their ideas work out in
practice. But the thought occurs to me that,
however deep their admiration might be, they

would not be tempted to share the simple life
of the islanders.

As Mr. Barrow, the clergyman, has said
in his report to the Society for the Propaga¬
tion of the Gospel, his people are remark¬
able in having no government, and no public
opinion, no rents and no rates, no regular
hours of work, no magistrate and no police.

104 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

no post, no shops, no drainage, no crops save
one, and no frost, but plenty of wind and
rain, and a fair amount of sun.

Their amusements are limited. Occa¬
sionally at Christmas and the New Year they
play games of cricket, even the women hand¬
ling the bat and ball with great enjoyment,
and the boys find continual amusement in
bathing through the summer months. They
have to keep to the pools among the rocks
to avoid the sharks which come prowling
round the coast.

I have said enough to show that in spite
of their isolation they are by no means
miserable, and that in virtue they find a
quiet happiness not to be despised.

One thing I must not forget to tell.
Agn£s became a hero and almost a demi-god
among them because of his accordion. I

O

suppose that never in their lives before had
they heard such sweet strains of music as my
sailor boy extracted from his instrument for
their delectation.

It was on board the J. B. Charcot that this

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 105

scene took place. The islanders swarmed on
board one day eager to see our little ship and
to explore all her wonders, and then Agn£s
tuned up and gave them of his best. It
seemed to bewitch them into a kind of joyful
madness. They all began to cut steps in a
grotesque way, and Ripetto, the tall Italian,
amused me vastly by kicking up his heels and
dancing a jig on deck. Agn£s was a proud

lad, for never before had he received such an
ovation.

But he was embarrassed when the delight of
the islanders in the wonder-working notes of
the accordion became so decisive that they
could not bear the thought of living hence¬
forth without its music. They desired to
barter with him for the possession of it.
Their offers mounted up until Agn£s might
have exchanged his music-box for three sheep

and Larose begged him to close with this
offer.

The price will not be considered small on
either side considering our need for fresh
meat and the islanders’ scanty property. I

106 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

think Agnes was inclined to accept the offer
through sheer good-nature, but I had my
own comrades to think of, and I knew that
they might find the time hang heavy upon
their hands in the loneliness of a long sea
voyage, and might give way to melancholy if
deprived of such a great source of entertain¬
ment. I therefore gave the islanders to
understand that no riches they could give us
would induce us to part with such a sublime
instrument. They yielded to the decision
sadly, but understood the value we placed
upon the possession of that accordion, which
I suppose had been bought by Agnes in some
seafaring port for a few francs or so.

One other detail of the visit of the Tristan
folk to the J. B. Charcot does not escape my
memory. Many of them were very sea-sick,
for they had never experienced the peculiar
sensations of being on board a fishing ketch
tossing in a choppy sea!

Of course one of the chief objects of our
visit to Tristan, apart from the quest of
knowledge, was to obtain certain supplies in

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 107

the way of fresh victuals, and before leaving
we engaged in the serious business of barter.
The islanders made curious demands. They
had, for example, a passionate desire for nails,
however rusty they might be. They coveted
our boots and shoes, and offered much wealth
in kind for any old shoe leather. The women
were clamorous for our shirts, those big-
striped, gaudy, cotton things which sailors
favour. The colours fascinated their eyes,
and in imagination they thought of their own
loveliness when they might stroll upon the
cliffs in such gay blouses.

So for these things, and a store of gun¬
powder (of which we had more than enough),
tea, cocoa, salt and sugar, dealt out not
ungenerously, we bought six sheep, three
pigs, some poultry, and potatoes. It was
with natural regret that we parted from these
good, honest, simple folk, who had dealt with
us most honourably, and had entertained us
with bounteous hospitality so far as their
larder allowed. I paid my respects to Mr.
and Mrs. Barrow, who had been most kind,

108 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and there was much handshaking and waving
of hands when we rowed off to our boat again
from the surf-beaten shore. The J. B. Charcot
stood out to sea, and once more we went on
light wings down an easterly course for

Kerguelen bound.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 109

CHAPTER IV

( Chaqjie soir, esperant des lendemains epiques,

L’azur phosphorescent de la mer des Tropiques
Enchantait leur sommeil d’un mirage dore.'

Jose Maria de Heredia.

We left I r is tail da Cunha, as I have said,
after a very pleasant spell, on the 27th of
January 1908, and our voyage was not very
eventful until we had passed the meridian
of the Cape of Good Hope on the 15th of
February. Then, on the night of the 15th, a
gale blew up, and we had an ugly sea.

From afar came the long rolling swell of
water driven forward by the relentless force
of the wind and rising high into peaks and
ridges over which our little ship tumbled,
staggering first one way and then another,
like a horse beaten about the head by a brutal
driver. My brother and I shared the watch on
deck all that night and all the following day,

110 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

during which the force of the wind increased
and whipped us forward as though we were
being chased by fiends. We had the consola¬
tion that we could carry canvas and run in
a straight course.

The little J. B. Charcot , too, was splendid.
There was no vice in her. She was not one
of those cross-grained, perverse creatures that
always have a leeward lurch, and struggle at
the helm and fall up against the seas like a
one-eyed mule, splashing the spray to the
topsails. Every seaman knows the brand of
a beast like that, which makes steering a
torture and dirty weather a death-trap.

Our ketch, bless her brave little heart, had
been so trimly built by a master of his craft,
that she rode like a cork, or rather—for that is
a helpless and soulless thing—like a beautiful
sea-bird, taking the very ugliest sea with
grace and courage and wonderful ‘handiness*
as we say, so that the long rollers slipped
under her and the wind could never get to
grips with her. We had but little free¬
board, yet during the height of the storm

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 111

hardly a bucket of water broke over her.
Many a bigger ship would have wallowed
and waddled in that gale until it was a

bruised and broken thing, but our toy boat_

it was hardly more in such a storm—sped
swiftly along with white wings straining and
a high spirit.

It was a thrilling thing to take the wheel

and feel the throb of her heart-beats as she

breasted the high seas, and to feel how

sensitive she was, even in this struggle, to the

touch of the helmsman, like a finely bred

horse who feels the slightest pressure of the
rein.

To a passing vessel or an ocean liner or a
three-master we should have looked, doubt¬
less, a poor little mouse of a thing waiting
to be drowned. Out there witli no one to
see us, we felt in our own hearts like the
old Vikings who went out into the wind
and the unknown seas without fear or fore¬
boding. I sing the praises of the J. B. Charcot
—good luck be with her wherever she goes—
but alas! even the best of ships may be tried

112 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

too hard, and in this storm we did not escape
without a shaking.

The wind had dropped after twenty hours
or so, and had veered round a few points. As
every sailor knows, that is the hour of danger.
It is what we call an untrue sea, for the wind
changing brings a swell from a different quar¬
ter, while the old sea drives on its way and,
meeting the new force, challenges it, provokes
it, and churns up the great water into jagged
masses and tumbling walls. Long hours after
the gale has spent itself, the waves it has
raised fight their fierce battle in which the
currents strive with each other for mastery.
The officer of the watch keeps his eyes open
and counts each third sea which breaks under
his bows, and every ninth sea, which is the
worst of all, expecting a buffet which may
cause his ship to stagger and swoon as though
dazed by pain, and perhaps to ship a sea
that will -make her lose all balance under
the awful weight of it and lurch sideways to
destruction.

So it was with us. I was below when the

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 113

blow struck us, so hard that it seemed to
shake the life out of the boat. Things were
flying about me on every side. Our cabin
was a ruin. There was a terrific noise as
though all our timbers were breaking, and
before my wits had got straightened out a
thunderbolt, as it seemed, came hurtling down
the companion-way.

It was Jean Bontemps, the boatswain, who

had been at the helm, and now scrambled

into our cabin on all fours. I sprang at him

in a passion, inarticulate with rage at what

looked for the moment like a sailor’s worst
treason.

‘ Y «u have left the helm ! ’ I said.

But then I saw that Bontemps’s face was
bleeding, and that he was in a frightful state.

I learned afterwards that when the J. B.
Charcot had shipped a brutal sea he had been
swept away from the wheel with a violent
shock, and after clutching at a mast, while
the boat heeled over and staggered this way
and that like a drunken beast, had been
hurled clean down the companion-way.

114 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Bat at the time I waited for no explanation.
Realising swiftly something of what had
happened, I rushed up on deck and sprang to
the helm, steadying our poor trembling ship
and wrenching her round from the broadside
of the waves.

By Gods grace she had escaped a second
sea. If, after the first tons of water had come
on board and sent her lurching over, she had
taken another dose of the same kind, it would
have been an end of the ./. B. Charcot , and
I should not have chronicled adventures in
Kerguelen. But terrible damage had been
done, and the misfortune robbed us of one
member of the crew, who had been a favourite
with all of us.

The sea did not take toll of human life that
day, but poor Patrick was washed over¬
board. I saw him swimming and struggling
in that swollen waste of waters, and I turned
sick with pity. We could do nothing to save
him. We too should have been drowned
if we had lowered a boat. But the loss of
Patrick was a tragedy which cast a gloom

115

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

over us. He had been a brave and cheerful
comrade.

It was some time before we could reckon up
all the damage done by those few moments
of destruction. Other lives of animals were
sacrificed to the wrath of Nature, and though
we did not have a sentimental regret for
them, because, poor beasts, they were to be
devoured in any case, we were dismayed at
the loss of five sheep and three pigs which we
had brought away so gladly from the isle of
1 ristan. They also had been washed over¬
board. One of our sextants was broken and
a serious misfortune—our compass had been
carried away. Esnaults last remaining plates
and dishes were smashed into atoms.

Even our dinner had gone into the sea, for
we had just been preparing for a meal when
the water swept on deck and poured through
the galley like a millrace.

Larose, who was usually stolid in any crisis,
was for once excited by this tragedy in the
kitchen. He came to me in a disconsolate
way and said, * Captain, what are we going to

116 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

do for a meal ? This is terrible, Captain. All
our dinner wasted like that ! ’ I forget
whether I answered him politely.

Below deck we were swamped, and it took
us a great deal of hard work to get things
shipshape again. I fixed up a smaller com¬
pass by the wheel, and Henri and I were very
busy in tidying up the cabin. Fortunately
the storm had abated, and although it was
not good weather and the sea was very choppy
after the gale, we made fair headway on our
course.

As day followed day and we sailed east-
ward-ho! through the grey immensity of
the Indian Ocean, where no other sail ap¬
peared on the far horizon, my brother and I
could not keep back a new sensation of
anxious hope. Each hour in which the wind
drove us on our course, and the small ship,
which had been our good and faithful friend,
breasted the swelling waters and left behind a
silver wake clear cut for many knots upon the
surface of that lonely sea, brought us nearer

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 117

to those barren shores that we had dreamed
of for months, and where we should make
our dwelling-place in loneliness.

Often when I took the watch at night and
gazed through the glimmering twilight across
the phosphorescent highway which was our
road of adventure, and perhaps—who knew ?
—our way to death, strange thoughts took
possession of me and held my soul in the grip
of an emotion not to be expressed in words.

I knew that we should encounter many
dangers. The chart of Kerguelen was as
familiar to my eyes as the map of Paris, but
that chart was vaguely drawn in and pieced
together from reports of seamen and sealers
who had not gone far around the coasts or into
the rock-strewn straits of that broken mass of
uninhabited islands. We-should have to feel
our way carefully and make our own sound-
ings. We should have to test and correct
and discover the outline of the coast and the
position of the reefs and rocks roughly in¬
dicated upon that parchment, which left so
much to the imagination and so much to luck.

118 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

It was still a no-man’s-land. Somewhere
or other there was a French flag flying, or
there stood upon some high promontory a pole
from which the French flag had flown, where it
had been put up by my compatriot, Lieutenant
Kerguelen, over a hundred years before, as a
sign that the Island of Desolation and the
adjacent islands had been taken possession of
in the name of France. But that was only
a sentimental conquest.

Kerguelen himself, setting out from France
on a voyage of discovery to settle one way or
another the dream of philosopher and explorer,
far back in the ages of the world, of a Great
South Land, had seen but little of the place
to which he had given his name. On the first
expedition he had not set one foot upon those
basalt rocks, for tempestuous seas were break¬
ing upon them, and only through fog and
rain-clouds of a day in January in the year
1772 did he gaze upon the dim dark land
where death Jay in wait for any ship that
should venture close. But Kerguelen’s mental
vision saw more than his searching eyes, and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 119

when he returned to France he told many
great tales of that island group, which, as
far as he knew, stretched southward to the
unknown continent of the Antarctic.

French scientists urged him to go back to
gather more definite knowledge, and Lieu¬
tenant Kerguelen made a second expedition
which was more fruitful in actual infor¬
mation of the coast line and the bays. But
even now his chart was but a sketch-map

which left great gaps and the dotted lines of
uncertainty.

He had been followed on the southward
trail by the great English seaman Captain
James Cook, who also had been inspired by
the hope of finding the Southern Continent
which the imagination of many writers had
peopled with a white race more civilised than
those of the Western world, and had stored
with natural riches beyond the dreams of
wealth. Cook himself was a sturdy, hard-
headed seaman, who was not likely to indulge
in those brilliant and enticing' fancies, but he
had the genius of the explorer and the dogged

120 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

courage of his race, and he steered his course
southward and eastward, searching with far-
seeing eyes for any sign of land. He too
sought Kerguelen and lay-to in its broadest
bays, and saw this sanctuary of the sea where
the whales and sea-elephants swarm in thou¬
sands, beyond reach, at that time, of the
hunters who on other shores fought these
monsters in their own element and killed
them in vast numbers.

Long after Cook came Sir James Ross in
1843, but the coast was too perilous for him
to venture to land, and he sailed away again
without adding much to the drawing on the
chart. Then, in the seventies of the nineteenth
century, the great Challenger Expedition had
come to Kerguelen, and to those brave men
I owed most of my knowledge of the land to
which the J. B. Charcot was now flying with
all her canvas set. .

But when all had been told, Kerguelen was
still the Island of Desolation, uninhabited,
and to a vast extent unknown.

During the past fifty years other ships had

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 121

been there. American sealers, following the
sea-elephants to their furthest hiding-place,
had put into some of the bays, had made the
black rocks run with the blood of their victims,
and had gone away without adding a word
to the geographical records. They had aban¬
doned it to its own loneliness, for it lay too
far off the track of the highways of com¬
merce to tempt men to risk death when seals

might be found nearer to the world’s great
continents.

I knew that when we found our first
anchorage off the coast of this Desolate Isle
we should see no human face but those of
our few good comrades, that we should get
no help from any human hand, that we should
find no light to steer the way, no stores to
eke out our own dwindling supplies, no foot¬
print to promise companionship and human
society. There we six, we little band of
brothers, would be thrown absolutely upon
our own resources. Upon our own skill as
seamen and hunters would depend our safety
and lives. Upon our moral strength and

122 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

endurance would depend our health and our
discipline. Upon our cautiousness and vigil¬
ance would depend, but not entirely, the fate
of the J. li. Charcot and those voun< r men
who had volunteered to serve with us on our
adventures.

I say not entirely, for whatever vigilance,
carefulness, courage, endurance and discip¬
line might be ours, we were at the mercy of
something greater than any of these—Fate
or Luck. We were sailing into the Unknown.
We could not anticipate or be forewarned
against the dangers lurking there. By good
luck we might avoid a sunken rock or an un¬
charted reef. But luck is inconstant. One
cannot have it always the same way. By bad
luck we might strike upon the rocks before
we had set foot upon the land.

And what of my men? Could I trust
them ? Could I be sure that such a boy as
Esnault, the cook, such lads as Agn£s and
Larose would prove themselves to be of that
stuff which is necessary for explorers on a
desert island ? I was going to put them to a

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 123

great test, a test only restricted by the last
limit of human endurance. For more than
a year they must stand by me in fair weather
and foul, through days of ceaseless labour, in
hardships worse than any they had known, in
journeyings over grim and dreadful mountains,
where there would be none of the comforts of
life, none of those compensations which men
balance against their toil. They were to go
hunting with me. Upon their bravery and
the toughness of their hearts our larder would
depend. If they were faint-hearted, or if
their strength gave way, we should starve
and die. In that eternal loneliness, cut off
from all society and amusement and human
variety, the minds of these young men would
be put to a trial of strength with those
devils of melancholia and madness which
tempt to murder or suicide, men who are very
much alone in the wild places of the world.

I could not ignore all these possibilities.

The lives of the crew of the J. B. Charcot were

m my keeping. Upon my shoulders, and

those of my brother Henri, would rest any

5

124 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

tragedy that might befall them. But I har¬
boured no fears, and was shaken by no fore¬
bodings of tragic happenings. At least I
would not allow myself to entertain those
little devils of doubt which poke their ugly
faces into the brain of a man who is facing
the mystery of the unknown.

After all, I had spent nearly six months
already with my boys, and never once had
they failed me in an hour of danger, never
once had they shirked their work, never once
had they shown a sign of fear or faint-hearted¬
ness. They were of good stuff. I could put
my faith in them. One can go a long way
with willing hearts.

So, as I neared the Island of Desolation, I
was eager to start this new life of wander¬
ing about its coasts and of exploring its
country. And all the time I dwelt upon the
thought of our seal-hunting. That must be
our chief business. I must get many tons of
seal oil in order to pay my men when they
reached their last port. If bad luck went
with us on our hunting trips, if the seals had

125

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

fled to other haunts, if we did not get the
trick of capturing them, if their strength should
be too much for us, there would be no joy in
getting to Melbourne, for I should be worse
than a shipwrecked mariner. I should be a
bankrupt master, and my faithful servants
would go unpaid and their reproaches would
cut me to the heart.

Such, then, were the emotions with which I
drew near to the great goal of our hope and
ambition, and I trust my readers will pardon
such reminiscences from a seaman, who, in
spite of his youth and high spirits (I may
claim to have had both those good qualities),
had also his very serious moments when he
thought of his burden of responsibility.

Our first sight of land was when, towards
nightfall on 4th March, we saw through the
hazy twilight the mountain peak of Croy
Island, the most westerly of a group of
volcanic rocks called the Cloudy Islands. It
was our intention to make for Christmas
Island, on the north-east of Kerguelen. 'Out
in those seas, with sudden gales and uncharted

126 15,000 MILES IX A KETCH

channels, one cannot keep to time and hold
on a course with the regularity of a cross-
Channel steam-packet. We were to fight
our way a long way round before reaching
the anchorage.

We fell at once into dirty weather. Fierce
gusts were blowing, and we were alarmed at
the thought of getting into a channel between
the islands which, according to our chart,
were rocky and dangerous. We therefore
stood out further and tacked northward and
eastward. At 7 o'clock that evening we lay-
to for the night, while all around us there was
the strange and ominous noise of bubbling
waters and the sullen booming of the wind.

At 4 a.m. we got to the mouth of Bligh’s
Cap, discovered by that good seaman who
was with Captain Cook in the Resolution , and
afterwards in the famous mutiny of the
Bounty. Here we were enveloped in a thick
fog, through which we could see no trace of
land, though Henri and I gazed into the sea-
mist with strained and anxious eyes, knowing
that it was a deadly peril to go drifting like

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 127

this near to unknown rocks. Later in the
day we crept southwards, and through the
grey haze saw land on our starboard bow,
which we knew by our observations to be
Roland Island. We were very close to it,
but we did not know which way the current
was drifting, and we were in fear of being
lodged on one of the rocky shelves.

Fortunately we saw a small bay on the
east coast not marked on the chart, which
gives a very indefinite outline of the island
and is just dotted in, in the vaguest and most
inaccurate way.

Henri decided to try to get anchorage in

this bay, but there was a heavy swell on,

though the wind was dropping, and presently

the Charcot lay becalmed. Not a breath of

wind could we whistle up to carry our little

ship into harbour, and with the current

running swiftly there was trouble ahead.

Henri and I decided to lower our biggest

whaling boat and to tow the J. B. Charcot
to safe waters.

Four of us took to the oars and, with a rope

128 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

to the hows of our ship, we pulled our hardest.
It was tough work, but inch by inch we
struggled along and got into the water of the
bay, where there was good shelter. Here we
found ten fathoms of water and heaved the
anchor. But it was a sandy bottom and by
no means an ideal anchorage.

It was then 6th March, and on the follow¬
ing day I landed, and taking Esnault, the
cook, with some provisions, and a gun over
my shoulder, set out to climb the high peak
of the island. It was my first expedition on
land in the Kerguelen group, and for the first
time I trod those rugged basalt rocks which
rise in tumbled masses of black and barren
ledges and ridges and plateaux, as though
great giants had been at play hurling huge
boulders about.

Esnault and I climbed till we were out of
breath, and rested awhile in that high eyrie
to look down far below upon the boat. A
mere toy it seemed, hugging the shore in the
little bay.

Intense silence brooded round us—a silence

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 129

undisturbed, since the first upheavals of Nature
in the caldron of the world, by any sound
save the cry of the sea-birds and the howling
of the winds which circle round this peak
with a wild wailing, or fierce shrieks like
witch-hags chasing each other on their
broomsticks, or with a low and murmurous
booming between the gusts.

W e ascended to the topmost peak, scram¬
bling over broken pillars of rock and slip¬
ping over loose boulders wet with sea-mists.
Sometimes, as we went, birds were startled
from the sparse tussock grass of the lower
ledges or from cavities between the rocks,
the females giving a plaintive whistle, the
drakes sounding a deep, sonorous quack, as
they flew away on strong wings or ran like
grouse or quails along the ridges. They were
teal—a rather small duck with dark brown
plumage tipped with white, and another with a
lighter shade of brown. It was the first time
in their life-story that their quietude had
been disturbed by human beings, and they
were startled at the sight of us. I shot a

130 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

few of them, the first game that had fallen
to our guns since leaving France, and the
sound of my gun seemed to echo against
every crag and in every cavern. Thousands
of birds were scared from their nests and flew
with a clamour of wings and frightened cries
across the island.

Esnault picked up the ducks that had
fallen to their unknown enemy, and then we
descended the path, carrying this welcome
addition to our larder.

That night we had a feast on board, during
which I described my climb as we sat at
table in our little cabin. We decided that
the first new peak to he explored by us
should be called after the gallant man whose
portrait looked down upon us from the
bulk-head. I hope that the mountain on
Roland Island will always be known by the
name of Charcot Peak which we put upon our
chart.

Over the ducks our tongues wagged faster
than is usual with sailors, for it was good fare
after our tinned provisions, and held out a

1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH 131

promise of ‘ flesh-pots * which would soften
the hardships of our future life.

Esnault had surpassed himself in his galley,
taking a new pride in his profession, and he
bore in the steaming dish with an air of
triumph. Even Larose, who had been
wondering how Kerguelen would agree with
him, concluded that if such ducks could often
be stewed in their own juice, life would not
be unsupportable. My readers will perhaps
pardon me lingering over that meal time,
which still makes my mouth water at the
thought of it.

During our stay in Roland Isle we came
near to losing our gallant little craft. The
bay afforded no safe shelter from the north¬
easterly gales that came whistling up with
shrill sharp gusts, so that we could never
relax our vigilance or be certain of safety
from one hour to another. I was sitting at
a meal in the cabin when one of these wind
volleys came booming into the bay and
caught us with a frightful broadside as we

lay at anchor. It came with swift and sudden

5a

132 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

force and heeled us almost on to our beam
ends.

I was first made aware of the blow that had
struck us by lurching off my seat and finding
that all the perpendiculars of the cabin had
shifted into acute angles, or to speak more
simply, that we had been thrown sideways
with a loud bang from the capful of wind.
The meal that had been laid by Esnault was
promptly hurled into our laps and on to the
floor, where the juice trickled into our lockers.

At the same moment, for it all happened
in a few seconds, I heard Bontemps’s voice
shouting on deck. I caught his words and
they scared me a good deal.

‘ We are running on to the rocks ! Captain,
come quick! We are running on to the
coast!’

I was not long in taking that companion
ladder. I swung up on deck, and a swift
glance to starboard and helm showed me that
our position was indeed most perilous. Our
anchor had dragged in the sandy bottom and
the smack of wind had buffeted us right round

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 133

to the jagged walls of that basalt coast. Our
stern at that moment was only a few yards
from the rocks, and it was clear that another
of those wild volleys would dash us to certain
destruction. I think for the next quarter of
an hour our hearts stood in our mouths, as
the old saying goes.

None of us gave any expression to any sign
of fear, but I know that I was very much
afraid, not for myself but for our brave little
ship. It was pitiful to think that after her
gallantry on the high seas she might be
broken into splinters on those abominable

cliffs, which were as sharp and jagged as a

saw.

We listened intently to the voice of the
wind. Outside in the open sea it was groan¬
ing and complaining and fretting the waters
into a witches’ caldron of seething surf. But,
by the grace of God, it did not come quickly
again into the funnel of the narrow bay, and
presently its force abated. Our anchors held
throughout the rest of the night, and when the
dawn came, Henri and I, who had been sharing

134 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the watch, turned in for a little sleep, with
strict commands to the relief watch to keep a
sharp lookout for any sign of change in the
wind. But we had lost all desire to remain
longer in that bay, and decided to move on
at once to safer anchorage.

When destruction on the rocks seemed to
be the almost certain fate of the J. B. Charcot ,
I had taken a measure of precaution which
might at least be the means of keeping our¬
selves alive for some months. Hurrying into
the cabin I stuffed a canvas sack with a
variety of articles that would be of most use
to shipwrecked seamen cast ashore. Chief
among them were guns, cartridges, matches,
needles, twine, biscuits, rum, and some tins
of meat.

It seemed to me that if we could cling to
the sack we should be by no means helpless.
We would make a struggle for life anyhow
on Roland Isle, and with Robinson Crusoe
as our example, we might grow long beards
and still be alive and well when a sealer or a
whaling boat came within hail. I had proved

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 135

that birds were plentiful on these rocks, and
our guns would provide a larder. With
matches we should not go without a camp
fire, with needles and twine we could make
a boat out of our old sail. For a time it
would have been no worse than a picnic !

So at least I assured myself, though the
fun of the thing would have soon worn off,
and the good God alone could say how many
years might pass before we sighted a friendly
sail and escaped from that rock-bound prison.
Providentially, as I have said, we escaped
that fate on Roland Isle, but the ‘Ship¬
wreck Sack, as we called it, became an im¬
portant part of our equipment, and the crew
were instructed to make that their first care
if the worst came and our good ship fell upon

the rocks. All knew where to lay their
hands upon it..

Well, as I have said, we decided to get
away to safer waters, but fate played tricks
with us. Bontemps whistled at the bows,
but not a breath of wind answered him.
After the storm we were in a dead calm, and

136 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

our sails drooped like the wings of a tired
bird. There was nothing to be done but to
remain where we were. But at any moment
another of those gusts which came eddying
round Charcot Peak might again catch us
and give us another horrid half-hour, ending
perhaps in the tragedy which we had already
so narrowly escaped.

H enri and I hit upon a plan which was
not perfect but the best we could do. We
had a boat lowered, and, with a rope slung
to the bows of our small ship, rowed across to
land on one side of the bay and fixed it taut
to the rocks. Then we fastened a rope to the
ship’s stern and, rowing across to the other
side of the narrow bay, tied that up also.

Here we were, then, tethered to earth like
a restive colt, and I suppose those ropes
would have been some use in keeping us off
the rocks, though not much use if the wind
proved a heavy strain. It gave us a sense of
security anyhow. But after the calm we were
at our wits’ end how to circumvent the funnel
of wind that now came circling again round

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 137

what we called that damned rock, in every
direction but the right one to fill our sails
and carry us out to open water.

It almost appeared that we were in no
better plight than if we had actually gone on
to the rocks. It was very nice to have a
ship to sleep in, of course, but what; we
wanted was a ship to sail in, and sail we
could not with those madcap gusts succeeded
by exasperatihg calms.

Well, our sailor’s wits got to work again.
We took the anchor on its chain to shore and
drove it into the land at an angle from the
Charcot. Then with the winch on board we
hauled ourselves round foot by foot towards
the north of the bay. Shifting our anchor
further and further to the extremity of
the bay, we worked at the winch again,
and, strange as it may appear, succeeded in
getting clear of the harbour into which we
had towed the little ship upon our arrival,
little guessing how difficult would be the way
of escape. This manoeuvre on our part does
not come within the code-book of navigation,

138 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

%

but it is surprising what things you have to do
when you go exploring desert islands! For
the first time,the smallness of the J. B. Charcot
was a source of safety.

Anyhow, there we stood out at sea, where
we filled our sails with a good west wind,
free at last from those goblin blasts that had
come dancing round Charcot Peak.

It was on 9th March that we made our
cheerful farewell to Roland Isle. But we
were more than three hours tacking up the
bight towards Christmas Harbour, for which
we were now bound. Night had just fallen
when we dropped anchor, but for an hour or
more we were able to see the scenery upon
the mainland of Kerguelen, which we had
now reached at that point.

Christmas Harbour received its name from
the fact that Captain James Cook anchored
here on Christmas Day 1777, with his two
vessels, the Resolution and Discovery. In
describing the character of that land which
now lay before us, and where we were to
wander for many a long month and have

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 139

many adventures, I confess that my thoughts
may be coloured by a familiarity with and
even fondness for those grim shores. Other
sailors have sighted this coast or Iain for a

but in fog

and storm their imagination has been appalled
by the somewhat awful aspect of the Island
of Desolation.

few days in Christmas Harbour,

Yet, as we sailed into the harbour, Henri
and I were both impressed, profoundly, by
the grandeur and solemn majesty of the hill
country which stretched away, peak upon
peak, to the great mountain ranges and their
cloud-capped summits. The harbour itself
was about a mile wide at the gateway, with
Cape Francois on the north, and on the
south a rock 150 feet high, where the in¬
cessant sea has bored an archway 100 feet
broad, through which, at one angle, one
sees the coast-line with other mighty cliffs
and rocks stretching away to the far horizon.
On one side is a bay increasing the breadth
of Christmas Harbour, which narrows down
gradually towards its head, where there is a

140 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

smooth beach of dark sand stretching across
for more than a thousand feet

It was here that we anchored, staring above
us at the great black basalt ramparts, like the
bastions of some vast Bastille, rising ledge
by ledge to the height of more than a
thousand feet, while beyond was the great
Table Mountain, 1350 feet high, and Mount
Havergal, 1430 feet, upon which the giants
seemed to have spread white table-cloths for
an Olympian feast.

Black as coal were the smooth polished
walls above us, silent as a fortress of King
Death, terrible at first sight in their frowning
majesty, yet not without wondrous shades
and lights and colours. For the sun, setting
over the land as we sailed in, had filled the
sky with a glory of red and gold, reflected
with magic beauty upon the smooth waters
within the shelter of the rocks; and its rays
bathed the basalt walls with a rich glow,
flashing upon the face of them as though
some of these jagged spurs were veined with
gold, and giving a curiously soft beauty to

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 141

some of the rounded boulders, as though they
were cushions upon which great deities might
recline at ease, and overspreading others
with a faint crimson flush, and empurpling
the deep shadows that lay between the
ridges.

I have seen that coast a thousand times
and more, when in a snow squall or a wet
fog it has seemed truly diabolical in its grim
ugliness, a savage naked land of desolation to
be shunned by mortals and good angels; but
on a fair day, with the sun aglint upon the
rocks, all is different, and Kerguelen has a
beauty of its own which steals into the heart
and puts a spell upon one's senses, and has
haunting memories for seamen who have
adventured there.

We did not arrive without a greeting. The
inhabitants of this land, upon which no human
foot was set when we came near, had, it
seemed, come to stare at us with round-eyed
surprise. They were penguins—hundreds of
them — and they stood in ranks upon the
terraces of the cliffs, like files of soldiers pre-

142 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

paring to defend their shore from invasion.
Curiously human creatures, like old, old
dwarfs, especially when seen in the darkening
gloom, they stood there erect as though thev
had seen us from afar and were waiting to
hold parley with us. I have said they were
like soldiers drawn up in single files. Perhaps
I mix my metaphors, but, seen nearer at hand,
they might have been the waiters in some
vast restaurant of natural history in black
tail-coats and clean white shirt-fronts. And
they bowed to us repeatedly with the gravity
of a maitrc d hotel, as though saying, 4 Soyez
les bienvenus, messieurs. Quel vin, messieurs,
desirent-t-ils ? ’

All through our wanderings in Kerguelen
we came across these penguins, and our great
French author, Anatole France, would find
ample material here for a sequel to his lie
dcs Pingouins. We had to kill some of them,
poor birds, for we needed food, and found
their flesh not bad and very comforting to
our hunger; but they always were most polite
to us, having a natural and unfailing courtesy

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 143

even to their executioners, and in a way they
gave us a sense of human companionship.

Many a time we have shouted with laughter
at their comical ways. They had no fear of
us when we did not go out of our way to
disturb them, and, often standing in front of
a king penguin, I would talk to him in
French and he would reply with that grave
inclination of his head which is their most
characteristic movement, and by a most
sagacious expression in his grave button eyes.
At times we used to go to their nests— which
are no more than holes in the sands — to
search for their eggs. The females used to
waddle away, each with her one egg held
firmly between her web-foot, and then we
would just take them by the neck and slip
the egg away without hurting them. But
at those times we sometimes got a sharp nip
from their strong bills.

That, however, is anticipating our future
life on Kerguelen, and I must again return
to the night we anchored in Christmas Har¬
bour under the shelter of the immense cliffs.

144 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

That night my brother and I sat in the
cabin talking of all our plans, while on deck
Agnes played soft music on his accordion,
and Larose, Bontemps and Esnault played a
game of cards, well thumbed alter their long
voyage.

It was with a sense of thankfulness that
Henri and I faced each other over the chart
of the island. We had come many thousands
of miles through storms in two oceans,
through weather varying between strong gales
and dead calms, and we had arrived at last at
the land of our ambition without any serious
mishap. Before us now lay months of adven¬
ture of another kind. Kerguelen was our
own. No other soul claimed a share of this
Island of Desolation, but before it could be
really ours, we should have to explore its
hidden ways and till up the gaps upon the
chart. It was not to be a life of love-in-
idleness, but we looked forward to the toil
and the sport of it with buoyant and trusting
hearts.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 145

CHAPTER V

On the morning after our arrival in Christmas
Harbour, we went on shore and killed our
first seals. It will seem that we were in
rather a hurry to go hunting, but the truth
is we wanted to test our skill in what was
butchers work, but very necessary in our
scheme of life. Also, as I must confess, it
was difficult to resist the temptation of ex¬
perimenting immediately with the prepara¬
tion of that oil which was to be our chief
source of wealth at our journey’s end.

Later in our story I shall have to tell of
great seal-hunts, when we were surrounded
at one time by more than a hundred of these
huge sea-elephants, and when we were not
without peril among them. But although
on our first day ashore on the mainland of
Kerguelen we met and killed only ten seals,

146 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the excitement of that days hunt still lives
in my memory. They were lying on a ledge
of rock close to the sea, where an old bull
among them, measuring over twenty feet in
length, lay among his wives telling them
stories perhaps of those days far back in his
life when the man-hunter first came with his
death-dealing weapons to massacre his herds.
They lay there lazily, suspecting no danger
and blinking in the morning light.

Some of the families were asleep or scratch¬
ing themselves cosily with their flippers. We
came upon them suddenly, armed with heavy
clubs and one gun. It was with the clubs
that we first attacked. A good hard blow on
the head of the female seals would kill them
outright, but naturally at first we were clumsy
in our attack, and I was alarmed when I saw
the lads within reach of the great mouths of
those beasts, which they thrust forward with
a sudden jerk. One bite would have taken
a limb off. But my young fellows were active
and the seals retreated, always face forward to
their foes, until they were stunned and killed

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 147

by the blows which were hurled upon them
by Agn£s, whose lead-weighted club circled
above his head and fell upon his victim with
prodigious strength. The old bull I shot
through the head. It was now our duty to
skin the animals and to strip them of the
blubber, which forms a layer several inches
thick between the skin and the flesh. It is
perfectly white and very much like pigs lard
in appearance. With our knives we set to
work at this job, and I am bound to say it
was by no means a pleasant or elegant task.
The boys were not handy at first and they
were covered with blood and grease, and I
never saw a more horrid or disgusting mess
than we made on that rocky plateau in
Christmas Harbour. However, these un¬
pleasant things have to be done when one
goes on a picnic to desert islands, and one
must not be too delicate or thin-skinned.

Having gathered together a large pile of
blubber in great slices, we stowed it into a
boat and rowed alongside the J. Z*. Charcot ,
where we were received with enthusiasm by

148 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Henri, Larose and Esnault, who had remained
on board. The next business on hand was to
melt down the blubber into oil and to make
the casks to store it. The first operation was
an abomination, the second an exasperation.
To obtain our oil we brought out our stewing
kettles and set them up on deck. Then we
lighted a little furnace beneath them, packed
the blubber into the kettles, screwed them
down, and waited the result with mingled
anxiety and pride. The result was appalling.
From the furnace there rolled up, and away
over Kerguelen, a thick black smoke, as though
we had established a factory on the Island of
Desolation. The smoke blinded us and choked
us, but it was as nothing to the aroma which
began to proceed from the kettles and in¬
creased in pungency with terrifying speed.

That smell was haunting in its really
damnable offensiveness. For miles around
we made ourselves an abomination to Nature.
The stench from those kettles was sickening
even to seamen, who are not too squeamish.
It worked its way into our clothes and into

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 149

the pores of our skin. It pervaded every
corner of the ship. It took away our appetite
for food. Larose himself no longer sat down
to his meals with that voracity which was his
peculiar characteristic, and was decidedly ‘ off
colour. 'I he J. II. Charcot was a disgrace to
her owners. The clean little white soul of
her must have revolted against such evil treat¬
ment, for her decks were swimming in grease
and blood.

Meanwhile I retired to a quiet spot beyond,
where, untroubled and unabashed by the
observation of my comrades, I undertook to
make the casks in which our oil was to be
held. It had of course been impossible to bring
out with us two hundred ready-made casks.
Ihe hold of the J. B. Charcot was not nearly
large enough for such a cargo. But I had
brought with us all the material necessary for
cask-making, and all that I had to do was to
fix the staves together and nail the hoops on
to them. It seemed a simple affair, and had
I not taken a lesson in Paris before starting
on the expedition? It is true the lesson

150 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

lasted only ten minutes, but the expert

manufacturer of casks showed me how the

trick was done, and said with a friendly

*

smile : ‘ You see, there is nothing in it. Any
fool can make a cask.’

I began to work with a sense of mastery.
With my hammer handy, and my nails and
hoops and staves most admirably disposed, I
rolled up my shirt-sleeves and prepared to
produce half a dozen good casks in a very
short time. ‘It is so simple!' I said to
myself. As my friend remarked, 4 Any fool
could do it.' Hut somehow or other things
did not work out in the way I had expected.
I took the staves, placed them together ready
for the hoop, when, to my chagrin, as I put
the last stave in position, the whole bundle
tumbled apart like a house of cards blown
down by a puff of wind. 1 cursed my
clumsiness and started again. The same
thing happened. At the third time this
reiteration of failure was ridiculous, and I
laughed aloud. ‘ Come, come, I said, 4 this
won’t do, you know!

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 151

When, at the fifteenth time of trying, the
pieces of wood were scattered about in all
directions, it was no longer a farce but a
tragedy.

‘ Good Lord ! ’ I thought, ‘ what will happen
if I cannot get these cursed casks together ?
What is the use of hunting seals and boiling
oil if we cannot store it when it is all pre¬
pared ? How. can we pay our men when we
get to Melbourne, supposing we ever get

there, if we arrive without any source of
wealth ? *

Beads of perspiration broke out upon my

brow. I grew impatient with my tools and

flung them about. I kicked those senseless

pieces of wood, as if that would do them

any good. And I thought of Henris face

when I went back and confessed to this most

dismal failure. Then I recovered from my fit

of foolishness, and made a vow that I would

never leave the job until I had made myself
master of it.

So again and again, with stubborn patience
now, and like poor old Robinson Crusoe build-

152 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ing the boat which he could never get down
to the shore, I grappled with the difficulty of
my new trade, and after a whole day’s work
of the most humiliating character, I at last
stood, exhausted in mind and body, and sur-
veyed with an infinite sense of satisfaction
one complete cask, which seemed to my eyes
a very pretty thing. I rolled it along the
sand, laughing and shouting, to where my
brother and two men were enveloped in
smoke, still busy in making that appalling
stencil of blubber oil.

Henri said, ‘ Good man, how many have
you done ? ’ And I then told him that this
was the only child of my hands. He listened
to my tale of trouble with some concern, for
we both realised that if I could only make
one cask a day, it would take us the best part of
a year to produce the two hundred we required,
and time was too short for that, even on a desert
island! But I assured him that now I had
made one the others would come easily
enough, and we became cheerful when we
ladled our first quart of oil into the barrel.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 153

But then I was disconcerted by a horrible
discovery. The cask leaked at every join !
The greasy oil trickled out almost as fast as it
was ladled in. It was a dismal failure after
all! I could have wept salt tears of grief and
disgust. If Henri had chaffed me at that
time I think we should have quarrelled
bitterly, but he was only serious and con¬
cerned, and shared my sorrow. However, to
cut a long story short, I went to work again,
and this time my efforts were rewarded.
After further practice I produced six barrels
not only workmanlike in appearance, but
really sound and watertight. I had become
a master of my craft, after so many dis¬
appointments and failures. If the worst
came to the worst, I shall always be able to
earn my bread as a cask-maker.

It was with joy that we put six barrels
of first-class oil into our hold with the know¬
ledge that during the next twelve months
there would be no difficulty in getting a full
cargo of the precious stuff, provided the sea-
elephants did not abandon Desolation Island.

154 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

I must explain here that the skin of these
animals was useless to us. The sea-elephants
of Kerguelen are of quite a different species
from the fur-seals, and their coarse, short-
coated hair is of no value in the market. But
their flesh was a new and magnificent source
of supply to our larder.

All the way from Boulogne to Desolation
Island I had said, ‘ Wait until we get to
Kerguelen, my boys. Then we will have
great feasts of seal flesh. It is better than
this tinned beef and mutton, I can tell you!’
I had made good meals of it before, many
a time, on my Antarctic voyage with Dr.
Charcot, but my comrades were somewhat
afraid of the prospect of such fare.

In Christmas Harbour, however, they took
their first meal of it, and it was an enormous
success ! Henri did the cooking, stewing the
seal with onions and good butter from tins.
It was very palatable, I assure you. Contrary
to general belief, seal meat is neither rank nor
fishy. It is a dark meat and a little coarse,
perhaps, but in no way offensive. The heart

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 155

and liver and brains are especially good. You
may imagine Larose when he sat down to
such a dish. He was in the seventh heaven
of delight, and I believe that he was com¬
posing poetry to himself as he abandoned
himself to the joy, without any restriction
upon his appetite.

We had been very glad to get into the
tranquil waters of Christmas Harbour, as we
found them when we arrived in fair weather,
but as a matter of fact, after twenty-four
hours, we discovered that we were in very
bad anchorage. We had three anchors
dropped, but on the second night they
dragged a mile through the black sand when
a breeze sprang up. I had been below for a
time, and when I came up on deck I was
amazed to see where we were. Larose was
keeping watch on deck, and I exclaimed:

‘ Don t you see we have dragged, my lad ?
Why on earth didn’t you shout out ? ’

* Captain/ he replied in his simple, courteous

way, ‘ I kept my eye on a rock on shore, and
it is still there.’

6

156 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

‘ Yes,' I said, and angry as I was I could
hardly resist a smile, ‘the rock is still there,
but we are not! ’

Laroses faith in all being well so long as

° o

the rock remained was very characteristic of
him. He had a similar faith in other things,

o 7

and I think he would have been calm in the
midst of an earthquake so long as his own feet
were firm upon the ground and his own meal
remained to be eaten.

It was at this point in Christmas Harbour
to which we had drifted that we found the
flagstaff that had been erected in 1893, when
the Eure came to Kerguelen to take possession
of the island for France. There was no flag
flying, but the solitary mast gave us a thrill
when we saw it. It seemed to be a signal
to us from the country that was so many
thousands of miles away.

We stood out of Christmas Harbour at ten
o'clock one morning and went southward,
passing on our starboard a very conspicuous
rock which is charted as Sentry llox Island,
on account of its peculiar shape, and without

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 157

incident we reached Loom Bay and dropped
anchor in sixteen fathoms.

We found the bay to differ greatly from
the charts, and during our stay here of one
month we made a careful plan of it. It is
full of ‘ kelp,' a luxuriant sea-weed. There is
a high mountain about half a mile from shore
to the northward, and the sparse grass that
covers the lower ledge of the rock ceases at
about three hundred feet above sea-level; after
that there are very scattered patches of lichen
to cover the bare sides of the peaks.

Here it was that my men learned that the
sea-elephant is not the harmless beast that
they imagined. Throughout the night we
could hear large numbers of them barking
with a strange gruff roar—not unlike wild
beasts of the tropical jungles—which I have
learnt to imitate with some success, though
not with the same power of lungs.

Sitting ih our little cabin, or at watch on
deck in the darkness of night, it was a peculiar
sensation to be under the great black cliffs
towering up like the shadows of immense

158 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

fortress walls, and to hear those deep barking
voices reverberating around as though the
beasts were fighting in deadly combat. When
we went on shore next day, all was quiet. An
intense silence brooded over this part of the
island, broken only by the cries of the sea¬
birds sounding like wailing voices down the
wind. But we saw twenty big bull-elephants,
upwards of eighteen feet in length, lying on
the rocks within ten yards of the sea.

We attacked them with our clubs and with
a lance, but they did not yield so easily as the
females at Christmas Harbour. We could
not kill them, though the blood on the seals,
with which we soon became bespattered, bore
testimony to the severity of the battle. We
returned to the attack with an axe, but things
became very warm, for these tough old males
were heroes of their tribe, and never turned
their backs upon a foe. They kept their
giant jaws facing to the enemy, and while we
were busy with one of them, the others would
waddle forward and dart out their necks,
roaring horribly.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 159

Agn£s, more emotional than I had ever seen
him, had hurried forward, running and flour¬
ishing his club, and shouting war-cries. There
came into my mind old stories of the Vikings ;
this tall, fair Norman lad charging those great
elephants of the sea might have been one of
those Scandinavians whose deeds have been
sung in the saga—Leif the Lucky himself,
son of Eric the Red. He was indeed filled
with ‘ Berserker rage *; and again, as he went
brandishing his stick and shouting, I thought
also of Taillefer, the minstrel of Norman
William, who, with swinging battle - axe,
rushed upon the Saxons at the head of the
Conquerors knights. While the lust of battle
was in his soul he was no longer the gentle
sailor who played the accordion, but a very
fiend of destruction, and careless of those
gaping fiends which sought to devour him.

Jean Bontemps, our sturdy boatswain, was
hardly less excited than Agn£s, though not so
heroic in his appearance or execution.

4 Let me kill them 1 Let me kill them ! ’
he shouted when I was attacked at close

160 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

quarters by one of these big beasts, but neither
my club nor Bontemps's could knock the life
out of the tough old elephant.

It was a dreadful massacre, and the sight of
it would shock sensitive people at home who
would not hurt a mouse. But remember that
we were upon Desolation Island, and had
returned to the primitive conditions of Nature.
We were not unlike the prehistoric men of
the Stone Age attacking those great monsters
whose bones are so quiet now in our museums.
That herd of sea-elephants, so ungainly, so
monstrous, so hideous, with their probosces
nosing at 11 s and their tails beating the rocks,
and their huge squat bodies crawling after us,
was a sight not to be met with in the high¬
ways of civilisation, and called to the old
brute strength in man by which he became
master of the world.

To tell the truth, however, this attack with
clubs was too dangerous to ourselves and too
clumsy in its method to be adopted by us
in future. During that great fight with the
twenty bulls the black rocks ran red with

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 161

blood, and the place was a shambles. In the
end I had to send back for a gun to finish
these fierce brutes, and never again did I go
seal-hunting without that weapon. But we
could never take more than one gun, for I
am certain that if our men had been armed in
this way they would have killed each other
in sheer excitement.

However, on this occasion, we had killed all
the twenty seals without suffering any danger
ourselves, though that night when we went
on board we were utterly exhausted, and of
deplorable appearance and uncleanliness.

I hat night a gale blew with tremendous
gusts, but next day there was fair weather,
and we went to collect the blubber from the
dead seals. Foolishly, we again tried to melt
the blubber on deck, Henri and I superintend¬
ing the kettles while the men were on shore
cutting up the seals. There was once more a
scene of stench and filth on board the J. B .
Charcot , and, as a horrible climax, a flame
caught the floating oil, and it flared up in
great tongues of fire which scared us mightily.

162 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

The men also were frightened when they saw
this glare of light on the ship, and we heard
them shouting to us. My brother and I kept
our presence of mind, jammed the lids upon
the bubbling cauldrons, and threw buckets of
water on deck, so that the danger was soon
past. Obviously, however, the deck of our
ship was the last place in which to prepare
seal oil, and we transferred the kettles and
furnace to the shore.

For the next ten days I was hard at work
making casks, and I found that I could put
them together at the rate of four a day, two in
the morning and two in the afternoon. After¬
wards I became so expert that I could make
fifteen and upwards in a single day. Twenty,
however, were enough for some time, and
having produced that number, I put my tools
away. We then decided, as it was good
weather, to go for a little expedition, and
having put out the fire in the cook’s galley, we
lowered the boats and rowed to Long Island.
Hundreds of seals were on the rocks here, but
we contented ourselves with killing only a

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 163

few, and came back from our journey with
boat-loads of blubber.

At Loom Bay we busied ourselves in build¬
ing on the beach what we called in our pride
the Oil Factory. This was merely a rough
hut to shelter our melting-furnace. It was
little but a roof made of planks and seal-skins,
with a chimney, but it looked very fine to us.
The skins, as I have already said, had no
commercial value, so that ladies who shudder
at the idea of using seal-skins as building

material, need not be alarmed at our extrava¬
gance.

For ten days we worked hard melting down
our new stock of blubber, and then, taking
Agn£s with me in our lightest flat-bottomed
boat, I set out on a short expedition northward
round Lucky Point into Breakwater Bay and
Clump Bay. Most of the names of this part
of the coast, by the way, have been given by
American sealers who have paid occasional
visits. In Clump Bay we dragged our boat
on shore and went inland on foot, the chief
objects of our quest being to find coal, of

164 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

which we were in urgent need for our oil

factory, and to put new information on the
chart.

About two miles from the beach we found
a stretch of white sand, surrounded by a
natural wall of rock, which has been called
‘The Garden,' for, seen from the distance, it
looks exactly like that. Pushing forward, we
reached a group of curiously round hills called
the Beehives, and were now round at the back
of Loom Bay, where our ship lay at anchor.
Tremendous gusts of wind volleyed from the
south-east through a deep gully, which on the
chart is called the Devils Punch Bowl, and it
was easy to see that this storm-swept land
could never be covered with vegetation.

We saw no trees, but only bare rocks and
rugged hills, and walking was a slow and
tiring task, especially in the high wind. 1
can well believe Sir James Clarke Ross when
he says that one of his men was actually blown
into the sea when going ashore on Kerguelen,
and that he only saved himself by lying flat
on the ground. These squalls are called

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 165

‘ woolleys ’ or ‘ willy-waws * by the sealers.
When Agn£s and I stumbled on mile after
mile over that rock-strewn ground, my eyes
were busy with the scenery that lay around
us, and once again my soul was impressed by
the solitary and desolate grandeur of it. At
one time Nature must have played wild pranks
here, and Kerguelen must have been one of
the cauldrons of the primaeval world when
the earth was being shaped in the womb of
Time.

Vast volcanic eruptions had thrown up
those great peaks and plateaux of basalt and
dolerite, and then, ever since, the wind and rain
and frost and snow had been at work carving
them grotesquely, furrowing the face of them
with deep scars, undermining the projecting
ledges, digging deep caverns, splitting them
with huge cracks and crevasses, carving crowns
upon the tops of the peaks, planing the table-
tops, and polishing some of the long smooth
slopes of the hills. Here and there on the
cliff walls were single pillar - shaped rocks
curiously carved, and looking from a distance

166 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

exactly like giant sentinels keeping watch
and ward over the battlements. Upon the
higher slopes were great boulders resting
upon or between flat rocks in such a way that
it seemed impossible for them to have got
into such a position except by the agency of
human ingenuity and mechanical force.

Undoubtedly, in the first days of Kerguelen,
before history was written or men had appeared
on earth, many of the great mountain ranges
of Desolation Island had been unbroken walls
of basalt, but continually great fragments have
been split off, fretting the skyline, and tum¬
bling in disorder adown the slopes to form new
peaks and plateaux and terraced ridges.

It seemed to me as I wandered with my
comrade in this wild rock-country, casting my
eyes upward ever and anon to watch the snow¬
capped summits of the far mountains, that
superstitious men in the olden time could
have believed this place to be an abode of
demons and the haunt of dreadful monsters.

Our search for coal was not wonderfully
successful. Agnes and I were both on the

15.000 MILES IN A KETCH 167

look-out for the black treasure. Now and
again I stooped and picked up a stone
which looked remarkably like the best black
* nuggets,’ and some of these I pocketed to
take back to the ship to test as fuel. We
had taken with us ten days’ provisions, con¬
sisting of biscuit, tinned meat and jam, and
a small spirit-lamp for making hot cocoa, but
having seen the desolate character of the land,
and having noted and filled in on mychart many
topographical features hitherto unmapped, I
returned with Agn£s to Clump Bay, at the
end of two days, and found our rowing boat
on the beach. On our return journey to the
J. B. Charcot I made many soundings and
observations in Breakwater Bay, and I should
judge it to afford good anchorage. On board
our little ship I produced my specimens of
‘ coal,’ which Henri agreed to be very promis¬
ing, and we put them into the galley fire.
But my comrades had the laugh of me, for

they only became red-hot and did not burn
at all!

There are no trees on Desolation Island,

168 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and without coal our oil factory would cease
smoking and smelling, which no doubt would
please the penguins, but would be fatal to
our own ambitions. I had overcome the
difficulty of cask-making, and we had already
challenged sea-elephants to mortal combat
with the odds on our side, but we should be
undone if we ran short of fuel. It was there¬
fore an essential thing that we should search
for coal and be successful in our search.

Henri, who has a keener sense for geology
than I, had volunteered to go out himself on
this quest, and early one morning he set out
alone from Loom Bay, after being rowed
across the harbour by one of the boys. He
was away for many hours, and when the rose-
tinted clouds faded out of the evening sky
and darkness fell, I became very anxious for
his safety. I blamed myself for having let
him go alone, and conjured up many dreadful
visions of him lying maimed or mangled at
the bottom of a jagged ledge of rock or in one
of those deep gullies, which made a solitary
walk so perilous. It would be a terrible

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 109

thing if Henri were to meet with such an
accident beyond the call of help.

I had a lamp hoisted on our main-mast to
serve as a beacon, and at last I was thankful
beyond words to hear his voice shouting for
the boat. It was then eleven o’clock, and I
had almost given him up as lost. When he
came on board he was so exhausted that
he could hardly stand, having tramped all
those long hours across the rocks and
over the mountain ridges and deep down
into the grim boulder-strewn valleys with
a gun over his shoulder—a heavy weight
on such a walk—and with a canvas bag con¬
taining provisions for several days, in case of
need. But his day’s toil was not without re¬
sults, for, with his keen vision for likely places
in which coal might be deposited, he had run
across some open seams and brought back
some good specimens. He had also shot
several ducks as a present to Esnault.

We immediately put his specimens to the
test, and 1 had a feeling this time that it might
be Henri’s turn to see them turn to stone.

170 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

But fortunately they burned fairly well,
though the quality was not very good. The
seam from which it was taken will probably
have to ‘ mature ’ for a few thousands of years
more before it becomes of any commercial
value. But it served us until we got stuff of
a better quality on another part of the island,
though it was so far away that we could not
afford the time and trouble to fetch much
of it.

Altogether we found about twenty coal
deposits in different parts of Kerguelen, and
this was the result of an exhaustive survey,
so that, though the quality is never very good,
it should prove of value in melting blubber.
The best quality was near Sandy Cove, where,
during a stay which I shall describe later, we
burned about six tons. It was of a peculiar
quality because, although perfectly black and
shining like the best house coal of Europe,
one might rub it against one’s hand without
any blackness coming off. This is due to
its being 4 new 1 coal, as geological time is
reckoned.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 171

I remember that when I returned from my
voyage and talked about the coal, a lady of
my acquaintance was exceedingly sceptical as
to its existence.

4 You have told us. Captain,' she said, ‘ that
no trees grow on Desolation Island. It is
impossible then to believe in the presence of
coal, which, as every child knows, is the carbon
of old wood.’

Her logic was perfect as far as it went, but
it did not go very far. It is perfectly true
that there are no trees on Kerguelen—at the
present day—but it is equally certain that in
prehistoric times, after the volcanic forces had
thrown up the mountains and piled peak on
peak, there were luxuriant forests on this land
and its adjacent islands. The climatic con¬
ditions of the world have undergone many
changes before man began to test them with
his little scientific instruments!

As the coal we first discovered was at too
great a distance, we searched in places nearer
to the coast so that we might not have so
far to carry it to our rowing boats. In Seal

172

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Bay, the next opening southward from Loom
Bay, we found a seam of coal which was very
brilliant in appearance and looked like Cardiff
coal. We rubbed our hands in glee and,
having returned to the ship for tools, set out
for a heavy days work with shovels, picks
and blasting powder. It was arduous toil
and we were not expert coal diggers, and we
had to be very careful to avoid being crushed
under the heavy masses which we loosened
in the face of the cliff. But after many hours'
work we had a pile of huge lumps around us,
and each of us shouldered as big a piece as
strength would permit. So we marched, or
rather staggered and stumbled, under those
burdens to our boat, and then rowed back
some miles to the J. B. Charcot , tired but
triumphant.

Our triumph was once more chastened.
After trying the coal, we found that it con¬
tained over thirty per cent, of silicate of iron,
and the fire was soon put out by the quantity
of clinkers that accumulated.

I ought perhaps to make it clear to those

15.000 MILES IN A KETCH 173

of my readers who imagine that coal is always
deep in the bowels of the earth, that here in
Desolation Island the seams we found and
worked were exposed to view, generally in
the side of some deep cutting worn by a
stream. Of course, we had neither the time
nor the experience to search for or to obtain
coal that lay below the surface.

It was about this time, when we were in
and around Loom Bay, that Agnes had an
adventure which nearly robbed us of a good,
brave, and trustworthy comrade. It was his
great delight and pride to be entrusted with
a gun, with which he went out to shoot a duck
or two. On this day he went in a boat with
Larose, who rowed him across to the beach
and waited there, resting on his oars, perfectly
contented in his dreamy way to listen to
the lap of the water and the voices of the
sea-birds while Agn£s went ashore and wan¬
dered away in search of his game.

After some time, he heard Agn£s shouting.
But Larose was in a reverie—perhaps he was
dreaming of stewed duck—and did not pay

174 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

any attention to the noise from his comrade.
The shouts continued, and Larose became a
little annoyed at such persistent interruption
of his valuable thoughts. Again the shouts
came to him, and he answered back, ‘ All
right, my friend, I’m coming. Don't be in
such a deuce of a hurry,’ or words to that
effect.

He took his oars and rowed lazily towards
the spot where Agnes had landed, and then,
as he drew nearer, the peculiar note of Agnes's
voice startled the simple fellow, and it began
to dawn upon his mind that his comrade was
in serious trouble.

To do Larose justice—and I think I have
chaffed him enough—he was, in spite of his
simplicity, a fine fellow and as brave as a lion
and of an affectionate and loyal character.
Directly it came to him that Agnes needed
his help, he sprang out of the boat and ran
about searching for him. But to his dismay,
and though still hearing Agnes's voice, grow¬
ing fainter now and more agonised, he could
not see a trace of the lad himself. It was

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 175

twilight, and the black rocks were in half¬
darkness and the pools of water between them
were overshadowed. But by the sound of the
voice he drew near to the right place. And
then he saw Agn£s, or rather part of him.
That poor fellow had disappeared, except for
his head and shoulders. He had stuck up to
the armpits in a mud-hole and was slowly
sinking to a dreadful death. His face was
ghastly white and his eyes were eloquent of
terror, for, in spite of his courage, it was a
horrible thing to meet a death like this.
Larose understood the meaning of his shouts
now. He took one of the oars of the boat
and held it out to his comrade, who was just
able to grasp it. Then Larose, roused now to
his full strength, hauled him out and rescued
him from what seemed like his doom.

It appeared that Agn&s had gone wandering
with his gun in search of wild-fowl and seen a
broad, smooth, shining patch of ground under
a rocky ridge, which attracted him because of
its peculiar appearance. He strolled across
it and immediately began to sink in a bog.

176 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

He was unable to extricate his lower limbs
from this liquid soil, but he had the presence
of mind to place his gun horizontally between
his arms, which undoubtedly was the means

mf

of saving his life. The two boys came back
to the ship and told their story, Agn&s very
white in the face after his awful shock, and his
clothes caked with mud. Henri and I were
much concerned, and Henri especially was
very angry with Jean Bontemps, who had
been keeping watch on deck.

‘ Good heavens, man,’ said my brother,
4 didn't you hear poor Agnds shouting ? What
had happened to your ears ? ’

‘ I did hear him calling,’ said Bontemps,
‘but I thought he was singing, Captain.’

This was the last stroke to Agnes, wlio had
a very good singing voice, as I have already
said in the course of this narrative.

‘Singing! ' he said, with great indignation.

‘ He thought I was singing! Why, I was
just bellowing! ’

As a matter of fact, we found afterwards
that there was a real excuse for Bontemps.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 177

We discovered that when we shouted on shore
our voices went echoing in a peculiar way
among the rocks, so that they had a wailing
singing sound when heard at a little distance.

The mud-hole in which poor Agnes was
nearly swallowed up was only one of many in
Desolation Island. They abound in various
parts of the island and in the most unex¬
pected places. We always had to be very
careful in avoiding them when tramping on
expeditions to the interior. I had heard of
them before, because whalers and sealers have
told stories of shipmates who have gone ashore
to explore the district around their anchorage
and have never come back again, the belief
being that they had been buried alive in these
‘ sink-holes,’ as they are sometimes called.

Another cause of danger is the strange way
in which the crest of the rocks has broken
away, forming pits or holes sometimes to the
depth of forty or fifty feet. A false step, and
a tumble into one of these oubliettes would
cause the instant death of any unfortunate
traveller. We were lucky, however, in dis-

178 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

covering many ponds among the rocks, which
had been scooped out by the action of frost
or weather, or by volcanic disturbances, and
filled with good fresh water, crystal clear and
very cold. Some of these ponds were almost
big enough to deserve the name of lakes, and
they provided us with drinking water and
enabled us to replenish our tanks in the ship.

I must not forget to mention here a peculiar
plant which we found on the lower ledges of
the rocks among the narrow belts of coarse
herbage. It is called the Kerguelen cabbage,
and has a tough, thick coat growing along the
ground and then shooting up with a top of
thick broad leaves. We gathered a good
deal of this plant and made use of it in our
cooking, because we had a great need of
vegetable food to keep our blood pure. Iiut
the Kerguelen cabbage is not an ideal green¬
stuff. We had to boil it twice before we could
eat it, for it has a most rank and bitter taste,
very much like the most powerful horse-radish.
In the first boiling the water becomes of a
dark yellow colour, but in the second boiling

15,0100 MILES IN A KETCH 179

it is fairly clear and the cabbage then becomes
eatable. We made sauces with it, and chopped
it up with our tinned meats for the stew-pot.

I am bound to confess that, in spite of the
hardships of life on this desert island, we kept
a very good larder, for there is a great variety
of bird life on Kerguelen, and some of us were
good shots. These birds, too, were worthy of
attention for other reasons than the satis¬
faction of our hunger. During our Robinson
Crusoe life they provided us with a continual
source of interest, and their presence relieved
the desolate and inhuman loneliness which
otherwise might have been intolerable.

It was indeed a paradise of birds, and their

voices soon became familiar to our ears. Even.

at night one could hear them in the tremulous

darkness, and some of their cries had a

strangely human note, plaintive and -pitiful

sometimes, as though children were crying in
distress.

The whale-bird, for instance, is seldom seen
in the daytime, and then it seems confused
by the light, flying in an irregular, uncertain

180 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

way. But when darkness falls, the hillsides,
which have been quiet and desolate during the
day, are thronged with these birds, which
swoop about in short, swift, darting flights,
as though a legion of bats were in the air,
and all the time make a loud cooing noise,
something like the note of pigeons but more
staccato in sound.

The diver is another night bird, and it has
a peculiar cry like the mewing and miauling
of a cat. There were times, as I stood on
deck in the night watch listening to this bird,
when I could almost have believed that I was
back in Paris in a room under the attics where
the cats were on the prowl and indulging in
their witches’ chorus. This mewing bird is
of peculiar appearance, having a blue-black
head and white throat, a heavy body in pro¬
portion to its spreading wings, and a naked
stomach, uncovered by any down or feathers.

There are many other peculiar birds on
Kerguelen, but I think my readers will prefer
to follow our further adventures rather than
read natural history.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 181

CHAPTER VI

We decided to get away from Loom Bay, as
it was by no means safe anchorage in that
harbour, and at each gale we feared that the
cable might break and the J. JS. Charcot
drift helplessly on to the rocks. Before leav¬
ing, however, I went on another expedition
inland with Larose. Rowing off from our
ship, we sounded down Centre Bay and then
crossed over to Red Cliff, so called from the
presence of ferrous oxide in the basalt. It
will be easily understood that in a country
where the prevailing tone is black, a faint tinge
of red is startling, and although this cliff was
not very rich in that colour, yet in the glow
of the sunlight it justifies its name.

Close by we found a freshwater lake
hitherto uncharted. We also went to Bear
Up Bay, which we found to be of a totally
different shape to that marked on our chart

182 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and extending to a far greater length, broad¬
ening out at the top like a mushroom. At
the end of this bay we discovered a very high
mountain, forming no doubt the furthest spur
of a great range of tumbled peaks rising
to the summit of Mount Richards, which is
4000 feet high, with glacial ravines dug down
the eastern sides of the mountain slopes to
White Bay.

This trip took us two days, and shortly
afterwards—that is, on 25th April—we hoisted
anchor on the J. B. Charcot and set sail,
having been in Loom Bay since 12th March.
It was then summer, and we had had a few
fine days, though the thermometer never rose
higher than 12 c centigrade. But when we
got out of the bay early in the morning, a
heavy snow squall overtook us, whitening our
deck and rigging so that we looked like an
old-fashioned Christmas card, but without the
sentimental greeting attached thereto. W e
rounded Cox Point and found a heavy sea
breaking over hidden reefs.

It was an ugly position, and Henri and I

15,000 MILES IN A K

183

became anxious when night came and we
stood very near to Schultz Reef. We did not
know whether it was best to stand out in the
open sea for the night, but finally we decided
to sail ahead, and when it was pitch dark we
anchored at the entrance of Pigeon Harbour.
We had made a fair sweep westward and
southward round the mainland of Desolation
Island, passing, by sheer luck, between many
islands scattered out to sea and all around
this jagged coast, through the beds of rock-
weed first passed by Captain James Cook in
the Resolution a century and a half ago, and
down into Hillsborough Bay on the west side
of the Jackman Peninsula.

During that trip we had, while the light
remained with us, a broad survey of the
scenery of Kerguelen rising in the interior to
great heights of tumbled rocks and sharp-
edged peaks as we looked across our starboard
bows to the western side, while away east¬
ward the range of high cliffs, with Mount
Campbell as their highest point, formed a
great headland thrust forward to the sea.

184 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

On the following day we rode into the
entrance of Gazelle Basin, which was to be
our harbour for several months, and went
ashore by Sandy Cove. Here immediately,
as though he had foreknowledge of it, my
brothers quick eyes discovered a seam of
coal. This time it proved to be of good
quality, burning well, and without many
clinkers. It was a glorious find, and it was
this which decided us to make our head¬
quarters in this anchorage.

Accordingly, on the following day, I got
my boys into the boat again, and with a rope
to the bows of our little ship, we towed her
slowly into Gazelle Basin and dropped her
anchors at Sandy Cove. On our chart there
was marked a depot which had been left by
the commander of the Eure . It was marked
by a cairn, and naturally our first thought
was to find its whereabouts. This was as easy
as if we had had a sign-post.

It was an hour of keen excitement when
we came across these relics of former occu¬
pation, and we were as happy as children

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 185

who have unearthed a treasure trove. The
weather had not left these stores undisturbed
and undamaged although they were buried
beneath a pile of stones. Five casks there
were, all rotten, and the blankets and clothing
which had been packed into them had been
made utterly worthless by years of rain and
snow. When we took them out they were
neatly folded, but each fold was a rent, and
they fell to shreds and patches in our hands.
The biscuits in other barrels had all been
washed together into a pulpy mass, and had
a very sour smell. The rotten wood of the
casks themselves had long moss upon them.
A pile of tinned food had escaped damage,
partly by having been tarred all over.

We opened one of them and tasted the beef.
It was perfectly good, but fortunately we
had no need to take any for our own use. So
we carefully replaced the cases, and, as a little
contribution to any future adventurers who
might come ashore here, perhaps in a bad
plight after storm or shipwreck, we left a box
containing needles and twine and matches,

186 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the two things most necessary to mariners in
distress. Because, of course, if you have the
wherewithal to make a fire, and a tent, and
clothing, you have good reason for thank¬
fulness. -

As soon as we had settled down in Gazelle
Bay, we began to work the coal in order to
obtain a good store for our oil factory. It
was about two hundred yards from the water,
and the seam had dug a deep hole in the cliff
so that it had a projecting ledge, under¬
neath which were the coal seams. While
my brother was superintending the prelim¬
inaries of his work, Larose and I walked to
Observatory Bay—a one-day tramp across
the mainland which divides Hillsborough
Bay from Royal Sound. It was here that
the English expedition had come in 1874 to
observe the transit of Venus, and afterwards,
in 1902-3, a German expedition with three
scientists and seven.men in a ship called the
Gans. One of the scientists, Dr. Drygalski,
had climbed the summit of one of the peaks,
and built a cairn in which he had put a

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 187

bottle containing a message. Larose and I
discovered this, and read the words of the
message, which states that the ascent had
been made and that the mount had been
called Drygalski Berg. We also -found a
grave marked with a stone to the memory
of Dr. Engensberger, and two other graves
with wooden planks upon which had been
carved some Chinese characters. It was a
strange and solemn thing to find the record
of this tragedy in that wilderness of rocks. I
knew that Dr. Engensberger was reported to
have died of berri-berri, brought by Chinese
upon a sealing vessel. Shortly afterwards we
made a still more interesting discovery. We
had tramped for many miles among the rocks
when Larose suddenly called out, as though
moved by a strong excitement:

‘ Captain!’ he said, ‘ Captain! look yonder.’

‘ Wha t s the matter ? ’ I said.

‘ It s a house! ’ said Larose, as though such

a thing were a miracle on Desolation Island.

I looked to where he pointed, and there, sure

enough, were the four walls of a little build-

7

188 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ing put up by human hands. I knew at once
that we had found the headquarters of the
German expedition which had come out under
the command of Dr. Drygalski to make
astronomical and other observations in the
year 1902.

I suppose my readers will hardly under¬
stand the emotion that gripped us at the
sight of that little dwelling-place. Robinson
Crusoe, after some months of loneliness on
his desert island, had suddenly seen the im¬
print of a human foot in the sand, and all
lovers of that immortal romance will re¬
member how they shared his thrill at the
discovery. We too were on a desert island.
For months now we had not seen a sign of
human handicraft, but only the rock fortresses
built by the great forces of Nature, and the
mountain ranges thrown up in volcanic cata¬
clysms. For months we had wandered, far
from civilisation, and it seemed to us (though
we knew otherwise) that no human beings
except ourselves had ever set foot upon these
desolate shores or lived in its barren solitudes.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 189

But here before us stood, four-square to the
winds of heaven, a house, the sign of civilised
life, the silent proof that other men had once
come in a ship to Kerguelen, that human
voices had once echoed across the bay, that
they, whoever they might have been, had had
similar adventures to our own, had gazed out
upon the grand and awful scenery of this
island, had listened with beating hearts to the
unbroken silence, or to the sullen moaning
of the storm-winds and the whistling of the
‘ wUlie-waws.’ No sight could have been
more beautiful, more fascinating, more thrill¬
ing to our seamen’s eyes than the view of
that small house which had stood against the
fierce squalls and the furious gales of this
coast, long after the men who had built it
had departed over the sea. Something like
a mist of tears obscured my eyes for a
moment, for this house was the shrine of

many memories and a tale of romance.

Larose and I went up to it silently. There
“ something a little uncanny, some-
thmg haunting to the imagination, in this

was

190 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

deserted dwelling-place. I remembered old
fairy-stories told round hearthsides in Brittany
of travellers coming upon such a hut in
lonely, goblin-haunted forests. Should we find
a dragon sleeping across the threshold, or a
witch-hag boiling men’s bones in a cauldron ?

Seriously, there was a sense of old-world
romance in the discovery. As we drew near,
we saw that though the walls stood, the
weather had played havoc with the building.
Its windows stared at us with blind eyes out
of hollow sockets. The panes had been
broken by the gusts which had rattled against
them and buffeted them with brutal strength.
The roof had been smashed in and was full
of gaping holes. The wind even now was
whistling through cracks in the walls. The
German house was falling into ruins.

Larose and I went to the door and lifted
the latch and walked in. Then I gazed
around, drawing my breath at the strange
sight which met my eyes. Here, many years
before, my predecessors in exploration had
made a home, and had surrounded themselves

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 191

with the comforts of civilised life. Their
furniture was still here, tables and chairs
and iron bedsteads. But how strangely all
had been left! It was as though they had
been disturbed in their life by the warning of
some attack, and had fled without a moments
time to carry any of their goods away.

Indeed, it was as though the enemy had
fallen upon them suddenly, as though some
dreadful scene of brutal savagery had taken
place within these walls before the men had
been carried off as prisoners of war, and all
things had been abandoned as they stood. It
was strange! Here were the cooking-pots
and the plates and dishes, just as the un¬
known dwellers in this house had sat down
to their last meal. But for some reason that
meal had been untouched. In the iron pots
was a stew of some kind, thickly covered
with mould and the breeding-place of myriads
of bacilli. The plates and dishes contained
food of the same kind, sour and mouldy and

evil-looking. I had an involuntary shudder
at the sight of it.

192 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

There were other provisions, abandoned by
the men who had brought them ashore.
There were many kinds of tinned meat, and
some days later I sampled them. They were
quite good to eat, and, as I shall have to tell,
I lived upon them for some time, but they
were almost tasteless, and for the life of me
I could not have distinguished beef from
mutton, or chicken from ham.

A frightful and sickening stench per¬
vaded the hut so that I could hardly stay
there. I found that it came from a dish
of peas lying on one of the tables. They
were quite rotten, and the smell that came
from them was indescribable. I took up
the dish, and carrying it outside, hurled it
away to the rocks where the wind could have
free play with those pestilent peas. Then I
went back to the house again, and with
Larose explored still further into the mysteries
of this deserted dwelling. The most curious
thing was to find the clothing of the former
inhabitants. They had not carried away this
personal property, and now, still hanging upon

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 193

nails, or flung about the floor or lying across
the chain bedsteads, were jackets and trousers,

and old socks and shirts, just as if those
German explorers had jumped out of bed
and fled away in nakedness. But when the
twilight crept into the hut, those clothes
seemed to assume human shape, and for all
the world they looked like dead men hanging
upon hooks.

It was evident, however, that those German

scientists had dwelt here in comfort greater

than that enjoyed by the crew of the

^ Charcot. They had put up with

loneliness, but not with any lack of luxury.

I found hundreds of bottles for wine and

spirits, but none with any drop of liquor in

them. I do not think I have ever seen such

a stack of empty bottles about one house.

The Germans had left their food, but they

had certainly quenched their thirst before

abandoning their hut. It was disappointing

to me that I could not drink to their good
health 1 e

I have said that the hut

was deserted.

194 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Yet there were living creatures here. When
our footsteps crossed the threshold, there was
a scampering and a hurrying and a scurrying
of many little pattering feet. Hundreds of
mice had made a dwelling-place within these
four walls, and had reared many fine families
within their shelter. These creatures had grown
grossly fat upon the refuse scattered over the
floors and tables, although curiously enough
they had not touched the meal once prepared
for German scientists. They seemed to pre¬
fer to gorge upon the papers that made a
litter everywhere—German illustrated papers
and German pamphlets and old letters. • I
stamped upon the floor and made those
little beasts run away to hiding-places from
which they blinked at us not very much
afraid.

When Henri came afterwards to the hut he
was much interested in these papers, for he
reads German easily, and he was glad to find
a history of the Franco-Prussian War, which
he took back with him to the ship. Often at
night he would sit reading it for hours and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 195

translating it as he read for my benefit. It

was instructive to get the German point of

view of the great conflict with France, and

there were many thrilling and amusing stories

of French and German soldiers. That book

beguiled many an evening on the J. B.

Charcot, and was a notable addition to our
little library.

It was Henri’s idea, I think, that it would
be a good and serviceable work if I were to
spend some time in the German house tidy¬
ing up all the disorder of it and putting it
shipshape, and mending its broken places.
At that time it occurred to us that we
might beach the J. B, Charcot for a while
and make the hut our own headquarters,
but in any case it would be a good thing to
make it weather-tight again, as it might
prove of great comfort to other voyagers
happening to come to this spot. If left
to itself, it would inevitably fall into ruins
beyond repair. I readily fell in with the
idea, and one morning started off in a boat
carrying linoleum to mend the roof and

^a

196 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

floor, tools of various kinds, a gun, and a
bag of provisions.

I was eight days alone in the German
house as ‘ builder and decorator,' and it was
certainly the loneliest time in my life. It
seemed as if there were no other persons
alive in the world except myself. I could
imagine myself to be ‘the last man on
earth.’ For eight days I heard no human
voice, nor any sound of human activity ex¬
cept my own. Surrounded by wild country
where the sea-birds dwelt, and in that hut
which had been abandoned by its human
occupants, but where the mice frolicked
about by day and night, I was thrown
absolutely upon my own resources and my
own thoughts, and was a real Robinson
Crusoe, taking my meals in loneliness, with¬
out even the companionship of a speaking
parrot! Yet I can honestly say that, save
once, I had no fear, nor, save once again,

any of those uncanny, superstitious, uneasy

sensations which
men when they

trouble the souls of many
are quite alone. I have

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 197

strong and steady nerves. Superstition is
not one of my ailments, and I do not give a
rein to morbid imaginings.

I was very busy too, for there was an
immense amount of work to do in making
order out of chaos. I shifted all the mouse-
chewed papers from the floor and arranged
those which had not been too badly damaged.
I folded up the clothes and put them away
in neat bundles. I packed up the tinned
provisions, and generally played the house¬
wife in that domicile. Then I turned my
attention to the roof and floor. They had, as
I have said, been badly damaged, and the roof
especially was in sad need of repair. It was
not easy labour for one pair of hands, but,
cutting up strips of linoleum, I nailed them
across the planks. It was the best I could
do, for I had no spare wood, and it would at
least give the hut a new lease of life. At
night, after my day’s work, I used to be quite
ready to stretch myself on one of the iron
bedsteads, but often I could not get a wink
of sleep, for at that time the fat mice used

198 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

to become frisky and raced and scampered
about in a most irritating way.

I must now tell how one evening I was
scared more than I have ever been before. I
have said that I am not nervous, but I confess
that on this occasion my nerves became like
fiddle-strings, and my heart jumped into my
mouth.

I was preparing a meal for myself and was
busy with pots and pans. Twilight had crept
into the hut, and outside there was that
brooding silence which comes before the
night, when the day birds are settling down
to rest and the night birds have not yet
begun to wake. I was humming a little
song to myself, when I seemed to hear a
slight noise, as of some one moving outside.
I suppose one’s senses get quickened like
those of a wild animal when one is living
alone. Anyhow, just as an animal is startled
in its lair, I held a plate or something poised
in my hand and listened intently. But nothing
further seemed to stir, and of course I knew
that I was as utterly alone as a mortal man

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 199

may be. I went on with my work, but again
I stopped, and a sense of fear—a fear of un¬
known things—possessed me in spite of my¬
self. Surely something was moving, very
stealthily, outside my door '(

Again I pooh-poohed the idea, trying to
get a grip upon my foolish imagination. ‘
Then for some reason or other my eyes were
attracted to the window with its broken
panes, and I had a horrible sensation. It
seemed to me that a face was looking in at me 1

It was a white face with staring eyes. It
was gazing at me curiously, that pallid, dread¬
ful visage. Then it disappeared, and I heard
that stealthy noise which had first disturbed
me. I could hardly breathe; I seemed to be
choking. I was as though turned to stone.
But again I struggled with myself.

It was impossible! I must have been
deluded by some trick of light, or by some
fantastic prank of my own senses. Perhaps
I was going mad. Perhaps those days of
loneliness had been too much for me. I stood
still, trying to summon up a laugh to dispel

200 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

this stupid fear. And then—once more—
appeared that white face at the window, that
ghostly face with its staring eyes in which
there was a flash of yellow light.

J O

I seized something—I do not know what
and with a strangled cry rushed towards
t.ie door. At least I would see the thing

O

clearly before I went quite mad. As I
sprang across the threshold with my weapon
raised, I saw a white form slouch awav

m

into the shadows. It was a beast-like form,
though I had never heard of beasts on Desola¬
tion Island, except the sea-elephants and the
whales. I followed swiftly, and the white
form sprang away from me and out into the
open. Then I saw it clearly. It was a dog!
An Eskimo dog, with white fur and a plump
well-fed body. I was as startled as if I had
seen a real ghost, for it was hardly less sur¬
prising to find a dog on Desolation Island.
During the next day or two it kept within
earshot of the German house, and watched
my movements from afar as though deeply
interested in my appearance.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 201

I tried a hundred times to entice it into
friendliness. I would walk quietly towards
it calling it endearing names. ‘ Good old
fellow 1 Good boy! Come along then, old
friend!’ But when I came within twenty
paces or so the white dog would bound away,
and nothing that I could do would induce it
to be comradely. During our stay in this
pai t of the island the Eskimo dog followed
us about, though always standing aloof, and
we saw it many miles away from the German
house. It lived at Elizabeth Bay by hunting
the rabbits which abounded in Kerguelen, and
it was the last of its tribe. We found the bones
of other dogs, showing that at one time it
had had companions. Poor lonely fellow, we
pitied it and would have willingly adopted it
as a new messmate in the place of our lost
Patrick. But it had returned to the wild
state of its ancestors and was. shy of human¬
kind, though prompted by half-forgottert
memories to draw near enough to watch

those strange beings who had come to disturb
its solitude.

202 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Among other things that I found in and
around the German house during my lonely
sojourn there were wires and batteries for
electric light, a tin of petrol for a motor-boat,
of which I found the screw and pieces of
wood, a box used for holding scientific instru¬
ments, and a paper written by Dr. Drygalski,
saying that on a certain date Dr. Engens-
berger had died—‘ doing his duty for Science
and the Fatherland.*

In my small way I had done my duty also,
and leaving the house in spick and span order,
I started to tramp back to Sandy Cove.* It
was a perilous adventure, and I nearly joined
Dr. Engensberger in that bourne whence no
traveller returns.

A soaking rain fell hissing on the rocks
as I went forward, rushing down the slopes
and gurgling in the gullies. Then a heavy
fog closed about me, and I could see only
dimly across the range of black hills, all of
which looked exactly alike, and most grim
and brutal in their darkness. Needless to
say, I lost my road, and soon was wandering

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 203

helplessly without any sense of direction.
Yet hour after hour I stumbled on, slipping
down on moist rocks, lurching over loose
boulders, staggering into deep gullies.

I began to have a horrible suspicion that I
should never again see my brother Henri and
the crew of the J. JB. Charcot. Never again
should I sit in that cosy little cabin watching
Larose’s placid face over a dish of steaming
seal flesh, or reading Horace in the dim light
of our oil lamp. I was wet through to the
skin, bruised and leg-weary and very hungry.
I had onlji a few biscuits with me, and
occasionally I nibbled at them to keep up
my strength, but with the rather awful
thought that I should have to husband these
resources in case another day, or other days,
should pass and find me still wandering over
these mist-enshrouded rocks.

Then evening came and darkness, and I
found a cave in which to pass the long hours
of that horrible night. It was only a hole in
a rock, but large enough for me to get a
little shelter. Not much however. Wet as

204 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

I was, I became still wetter as the hours
passed. All through the night water dripped
upon me from the rock roof until the water-
drops froze into icicles and the cold became
intense. There were thirteen hours of night,

o ’

and for all that time I endured an agony of
suffering until it seemed to me that I should
go mad. I understood something of the
agonies of prisoners in the Middle Ages en¬
tombed alive in such a hole as this.

When daylight came I found that the mist
was clearing, and that on the previous day I
had been wandering in the wrong direction.
I was able to find my bearings, and after a
painful walk I managed to get back to Sandy
Cove and to get on board the boat. I was
utterly exhausted and almost delirious. The
adventure had not only been a severe bodily
strain, but I was faint for want of food, having
eaten nothing but one or two biscuits for
twenty-four hours.

It was now the month of May, and we had
a gale lasting with hardly any intervals for
thirty days. It is almost impossible to give

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 205

any idea of the violence of those storms, or of
the extreme discomfort which they caused us
to suffer. We soon became familiar with,
but never reconciled to, the infernal character¬
istics of Kerguelen weather. First, the wind
would come sweeping from the north with
a deep and sullen roaring like the rush of a
giant squadron of infuriated beasts, and hurry
the sea onward in its course in a vast
and awful swell, which broke its back upon
the reefs and the jagged coast-line. Then
suddenly, but with unfailing and periodical
regularity, the wind would jump many points
of the compass and pounce upon us from the

south-west with a new access of elemental
energy.

This was the most evil hour of the incessant
gale, for this south-westerly squall would
bring a new sea with it, and the two great
tides of the old sea and the new sea would
meet in deadly rivalry until there was a chaos
of crashing, struggling, writhing, and boiling
waters, as though hell were let loose upon the
ocean and had thrown the bed-rock of the sea

206 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

floor into a new convulsion. This happened
day after day for weeks ; first the northerly
bluster, then the south-westerly volley firing,
then the seething cauldron of the rock-strewn
seas. Fortunately we lay very snug in Gazelle
Basin, and although the gales raged around

us and the noise of them dinned our ears,
and the sea lashed furiously past the harbour

mouth, the little ship held to its moorings,
and only the shuddering of her timbers told
of the strain upon her proud spirit.

On the 1st of June, when there was a
temporary spell of fair weather—not idyllic,
you understand, yet tranquil in comparison
to the howling gales—I started out once
more for an inland adventure of exploration.
This time I took Agnes with me. I always
found him a handy fellow and an agreeable
companion. He was more intelligent than
the ordinary seaman and took a keen interest
in his surroundings, and had a quiet wisdom
of his own which enabled us to carry on a
pleasant conversation as we trudged on the
long trail together. He was also very expert

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 207

in the handling of the flat-bottomed boat in
whifch we did our coasting work.

After leaving the boat, one of us was to be
burdened with a bag containing provisions
for several days, a change of clothes for each
man, a spirit-lamp, a small compass, matches
in a tin, a portion of the chart of Kerguelen
(which we had cut into strips) rolled up in a
small iron tube, and knives. The other would
carry the tent, sleeping-bags made of sailcloth,
with blankets sewed inside, so that it was im¬
pervious to water, two bamboo sticks for the
tent-pole, and two pairs of sea-boots.

But that night we hauled the boat on shore
and pitched our camp, arranging our stores
around us in a tidy fashion. Sometimes on
our journey we used to make a house with
the boat propped upon walls of turf thrown
up with the shovel, with a little door through
which we could creep into our dwelling-place.
But on our first night’s rest the tent was
sufficient for our needs, and in the silent
solitude we prepared for a little meal.

I then made a disagreeable discovery. We

208 1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

bad forgotten to bring with us the spirit for
the lamp ! Perhaps that will not seem very

• ^?rs, hut I assure you that

it is not a pleasant thing to be deprived of the
means of making a hot drink and of warming
up one's victuals when one goes a-wandering
on a desert island where the wind rattles one’s
bones and chills one’s blood, and when the
nights are miserably cold.

I thought of Agnes, and hardly liked the
idea of taking him further after this loss.
Yet I should have been profoundly dis¬
appointed at turning back, and was prepared
to face the journey in spite of this additional
discomfort. To test Agnes and give him a
chance of beating a retreat if he cared, I pre¬
tended to get very angry, and said that we
had better return at once. But Agn&s rose
to the occasion with a fine spirit.

‘ As far as I am concerned,’ he said, ‘ I don’t
mind going without a hot drink. I would
rather push on, now that we have started.’

I was rejoiced to hear that, and said ‘All
right. So be it,’ with a feeling of gratitude to

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 209

this good fellow who had the true explorer’s
pride.

Early next morning, therefore, and before
daybreak, we got into our flat-bottomed boat
and rowed across the dark waters until light
glimmered in the sky, and the night birds
fluttered away to their hiding-place, and the
day birds awoke upon the rocks and rose in
flocks with their shrill cries. For a wonder it
was‘a beautiful day, and Agnes and I, alone
in the splendour of it, on the glistening water¬
way, felt as happy as mud-larks. We passed
near Freshwater Lake and under the cliffs of
high mountains down which the water from
melted snow came tumbling in foaming
cascades. We went to the end of Irish Bay,
and hauling our boat on shore, slept there
another night, making the best of our cold
victuals of biscuit and tinned meat.

On the following day we left our boat and,
carrying our tent and bags, walked for seven
miles across a flat moraine until we arrived in
front of a great, uncharted glacier and a
high mountain range. There was no pass

210 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

through which we could find a way, but we
decided not to be balked by the mountain
and to take it by a frontal attack. It was a
stiff, steep climb over those jagged peaks and
sharp ridges and giant boulders. All the
streams were frozen as hard as iron, and we
suffered terribly from thirst until our tongues
were parched and our lips dried.

We walked until night without drinking,
and we had no desire for conversation.
With our teeth clenched, very grimly and
doggedly we climbed and climbed, cutting
our boots and blistering our feet, and watch¬
ing how the shadows roamed like spectres
between those gaunt hills, and how the rocks
assumed fantastic shapes. All these endless
fortress'es of black basalt seemed demon-
haunted as the darkness fell, and strange
echoes of inhuman sound came up from the
valleys and the gorges where night birds were
chasing their prey. We had reached the snow
heights now, and as we walked we took hand¬
fuls of the powdery flakes and moistened our
lips and our swollen tongues. I was struck

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 211

by the magic of the whiteness around us
where this pure untrodden snow lay upon the
black ridges, giving a strange softness to the
boulders so that they seemed like pillows of
down upon which it would be good to lay our
heads and go to sleep.

That night we fixed up our tent in the
snow at the bottom of a deep ravine, where
we might get shelter from the wind, and here
Agn6s and I lay in our sleeping-bags chatter¬
ing over the experiences of the day and trying
to get warmth. I have a vision of Agnes's
head sticking out of his sleeping-bag, and of
his old black pipe filling the tent with smoke
and glowing in the darkness. He could not
do without his pipe, and it was a source of
immense comfort to him, though I had to
suffer for it. His comfort was short-lived,
for we spent a miserable night. Rain fell
heavily, and soon our tent was full of water,
and we lay in cold pools, feeling very wretched
and uncomfortable. We were glad when
daylight came again and we could push on
and get a little warmth by exercise.

212 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

But our progress was barred after some
time by a huge basalt wall towering above us
to an immense height, unassailable and un¬
broken. We were pigmy men standing below
the bastions of a giants citadel. It frowned
down upon us in gloomy majesty and we
stared up at its grim face with a sense of awe
and impotence. The Zeye glacier had cut its
way through this great mountain range, form¬
ing one among a long series of immense
glaciers, which, as I have proved beyond doubt,
belong to a range of snow-clad and ice-bound
mountains, hitherto uncharted, extending from
Mount Richard to Mount Ross. All this
mountain-system is set down on the chart,
which I have done my best to correct and

complete.

Agn&s and I managed to force our way
round the hills and searched for some hot

springs .which had been marked upon our
old inaccurate chart; but although we covered
the ground in which they were alleged to
be, we could find no trace of them, and I do
not believe they exist.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 213

Our provisions were now dwindling, and I
gave the word to turn back on the homeward
trail. Our shoes had been worn to strips on
the first day, and we had to take to our sea-
boots, which made walking very heavy and
slow in this wild and rugged country. The
rain had swollen the streams, and when
we came back to the spot where we had left

our tent in order to push on unhampered,
we found it extremely difficult to get across
to it. We spent some time in trying to find
a ford no higher than our leggings, but at
last Agnes, who had become impatient for
his food, decided to wade across. He went
immediately up to his waist in the ice-cold
water, and when I heard him shouting and
swearing, as he threw up his arms and
ploughed through the stream with stiff legs,
I could not help laughing at him until my
sides ached. It was really very comical,
though painful to poor Agn£s 1 I decided to
play a more patient game, and at last I suc¬
ceeded in finding a part of the stream where
the water did not run so deep. When I got

214 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

back to the tent I saw Agnes changing his
clothes, and again I laughed at him. He
looked at me suspiciously, wondering how I
had managed to keep so dry.

‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I suppose your boots
are full of water, Captain ? ’

‘ No, my friend,’ I replied calmly. ‘ As you
will see, the leather is wet outside, but I have
kept dry feet.'

‘ Well, I ’in blessed! ’ he said, and he stared
at me as if I were a wonder-worker.

On the way back we found a big salt lake,
and out of compliment to my good comrade
I called it Agnes Lake. In future years, when
other travellers stand upon its banks, I hope
they will remember that name and give a
thought to the young seaman of the little
J. B. Charcot , who played the accordion with
such a gentle touch, and hunted seals with
such berserker fury. 1 am glad to have
immortalised L£on Agn£s, good Norman,
good seaman, and good fellow.

After having lived on cold victuals with
not a drop of hot liquid to warm our bones,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 215

it was splendid when we found some fuel with
which we could make a fire. We came to
some ledges on which acaena grass was grow¬
ing, and it was worth more to us than gold.
For this grass has long roots which are as
good as firewood when dry, and we gathered
a bundle of them and made a first-class bon¬
fire on which we boiled a small kettle. Then
we made tea and warmed our limbs, and
Agnes and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves,
and could not find it in our hearts to envy
any man alive. It is astonishing how philo¬
sophical one becomes, and how one’s heart
expands with beneficence towards all mankind
when, after a long lack of the simplest luxuries,
one is able to enjoy a little creature comfort!

We now got back to the extremity of Irish
Bay, where we had left our boat. We loaded
it with bundles of roots for making other
fires and other feasts, and rowing into the
bay again, went through the narrow pass of
Husker Strait into Winter Harbour. Here
we found ourselves in the happy hunting-
ground of the Kerguelen whales. The sea

21,6 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

was crowded with them. Their black snouts
and fins made the water black. In every
direction we saw them spouting, and wher¬
ever we looked there was the sun gleam of
light upon a long smooth body, a ripple of
waves, and a black monster gliding forward as
quietly and swiftly as a torpedo on its way to
deadly work. They came within a few yards
of our boat, and I had the horrid fear that
they might charge into us and capsize us.
Agnes and I almost rowed our hearts out to
get away from this tremendous crowd of
creatures who, with a single blow, would have
smashed our small craft into match-sticks.
We pulled and pulled until our arms ached,
and then ran to the beach of Harbour Island
with a feeling of thankfulness at having
escaped a very serious peril.

Here, when we went on shore, we made a
new and joyful discovery. Indeed, it was the
most glorious find we made on Desolation
Island, with the exception of the coal in Sandy
Cove. My readers must not expect me to
record a discovery of gold or precious stones.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 217

Our treasure trove was of base metal, but
enormously valuable in our scheme of things.
My excited shouts were aroused by the sight
of five enormous and magnificent kettles!

They were not kettles for boiling tea or
cocoa. They were not really kettles at all in
the ordinary sense of the word. They were
the cauldrons in which men melt down blubber
for seal oil, and they were five times bigger
than our own, and therefore at least five times
more useful.. You may imagine, therefore,
the delight with which I discovered them. It
was a sight to gladden our eyes. Agn6s and
I almost danced round them, and told each
other a hundred times that it was the best
news we could take back with us to Captain
Henri and the crew. They had been left by
American sailors on this shore in 1850, pro¬
bably because they had intended to return for
further seal hunts, but had been frustrated

by the hand of unknown fate—and near bv
we found other relics.

There was, for example, an old whale-boat
which had been supported on a spar placed

218 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

across two boulders. The spar had rotted in
twain, and the boat had a broken back. All
its paint had been washed off and rabbits had
eaten into the wood, and it was the weariest,
craziest, old skeleton of a derelict that could
be seen on any shore. Around the boat was
a lot of old iron, among which were two
anchors, one of them broken and the other
rust-eaten. There were also five or six old
casks, all rotten and tumbling to pieces. One
of them contained treacle, into which I
dipped my finger. But when I tasted it I
found it was quite sour. Most of the casks
had holes gnawed into them, and had become
rabbit hutches for happy families.

Only one cask had remained untouched by
wind and weather and small beasts with sharp
teeth. I wondered at this, but soon dis¬
covered the reason of its escape. It was full
of salt, which had preserved the wood and
kept off the rabbits, who have no appetite for
this article of diet. It was, of course, im¬
possible to carry back even one of the giant
blubber kettles. It would have sent us to

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 219

the bottom like a stone; so, after lingering

around them for some time, we decided to set

out again on the homeward journey, in high

spirits at the good news we brought with us.

We should have to bring the J. B. Charcot

to Harbour Island to fetch those precious
tilings.

But we did not get back to Gazelle Basin
without trouble and peril. One of our north¬
west gales blew up, fierce and threatening.
From the north the wind came thundering
down, breaking heavily upon the islands, so
that it was impossible for a small boat to live
in such high seas. It was lucky for us that
we had not put our boat out before the warn¬
ing came, and there was nothing for it but to
settle down as comfortably as we could on
shore and wait until fairer weather set in.

For three days, then, we were prisoners on
Harbour Island, and our patience was severely
tried. But, like true seamen, we made our¬
selves as comfortable as possible in the posi¬
tion. At night we made a big fi re with the
old casks near our tent, and I went forth and

8

220 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

shot some penguins and ducks. These we
cooked at the fire, comforting ourselves with
the delightful smell of the roasting flesh, and
enjoying the anticipation almost as much as
the realisation of the meal. Indeed, there
was but little to do except eating and sleep¬
ing, and we had some great feasts. I shall
never forget the sight of Agn&s squatting
on his haunches before that fire which he
nursed so tenderly, and picking the bones of a
duck with quiet and diligent delight. We had
one or two books with us, and these we read in
that howling wilderness with studious interest.
They were volumes out of my school chest
I remember I had Lafontaine's Fables —
always delightful, amusing, shrewd, and wise
—and Agn£s was absorbed in Voltaire’s
History of Charles XII . of Sweden. It
excited him tremendously, and it is a proof
of Voltaire’s immortal genius, and of the in¬
telligent mind of Agnes, that this simple
seaman should be so thrilled by this historical
study. But, as I have said, Agnes had a
good brain, and if he had had his chance of

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 221

a superior education, he would have made full
use of the privilege.

I think my readers would be amused and
interested if they could get a clear mental
vision of us at that timp— sitting there under
the shelter of great rocks, over which the
wind came shrieking and howling, close to
the storm - tossed sea rolling ceaselessly in
fierce breakers upon the jagged and rugged
shore, our tent flapping and swaying, our fire
smouldering, and ever and anon bursting into
long curling tongues of flame, the'’smell
of roast penguin making a sweet incense to
our nostrils, and clean-picked bones lying
around as the relics of former feasts, and
Agn£s and I, dirty, dishevelled, hairy, dis¬
reputable - looking ruffians, studying the
pages of Lafontaine and Voltaire!

Agn£s, during our tramp overland and
during our nights in camp, had, as I have
already remarked, the solace, which I did not
share (having no taste that way), of smoking
his pipe. Once an awful tragedy threatened
to overwhelm him, for in stumbling over the

222 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

rocks he lost the bowl of his pipe, and realis¬
ing his loss some little time afterwards, stood
aghast and dismayed. Knowing that no
further exploration could be made if Agnes
could not smoke—for he was a bond-slave to
tobacco—I shared his search for the old black
bowl, and, after poking and peering about,
was lucky enough to find it. Agnes's grati¬
tude was touching and profound. He thanked
me as warmly as if I had saved him from a
horrible death. So all was well for a little
while. But when we were held prisoners on
Harbour Island another misfortune overtook
us, for Agnes ran clean out of tobacco. He
searched every pocket for any shred of the
precious weed, and sucked his empty pipe
fiercely and piteously, but it was all of no
avail. My comrade was suffering diabolical
torments, and his temper was breaking down
under the strain. I took pity on him. Bad
weather or good weather, we must get back to
the J. B. Charcot and to the tobacco-jar. As
a matter of fact, there was little improvement
in the weather, and a tremendous sea was

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 223

running. But we put on the life-belts which
we usually carried in the boat and launched
her on the turbulent waves. It was a reck¬
less adventure, but what of this when a man
is craving for a smoke ?

We succeeded in rounding the point to
make Pigeon Harbour, but this was the worst
part of the passage, and there were many
times when I believed our last hour had come.
We were out in the full blast of the north
gale, and our rowing boat was a mere cockle¬
shell tossed upon the vast billows. We rowed
and rowed, more like machines than men, and
sometimes we descended into terrible abysses
with a mountain of water bearing down upon
us as though it would smash us into nothing¬
ness, and then by a kind of miracle we were
riding upon the high summit of that rolling
sea until again we shot down into the chasm
below another oncoming precipice.

It needed all our strength and all our skill
to keep the nose of the boat forward to those
stupendous seas. If they had caught us broad¬
side on we should have been cracked like

224 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

a nutshell. Fortunately Agnes was an ex¬
pert boatman, and he had immense strength
and a courage that never faltered. And yet,
as the hours passed and we were still rowing
for our lives, it seemed that our strength
could hold out no more. We were just puny
straws before the mighty force of irresistible
Nature.

Once or twice in every minute I looked at
Agnes to see if he were weakening. But with
his teeth clenched and a grim look upon his
face, he bent to his oars, and his stroke was
always steady and strong. Now and again,
when we rose high in that long see-saw, we
caught a swift glimpse of the rugged shore
with the white sea-foam, like smoke about its
rocks, and this gave us new courage, for we
knew that if we had great luck we should get
into the shelter of Gazelle Basin where the
J.B. Charcot layat anchor. This luck was ours,
and after five hours in the open sea, battling
all the time with its fury, we were hailed by
our friends, who were ready to drag us
ashore.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 225

They had seen us for a long time. Filled
with the deepest anxiety, and almost breath¬
less with suspense, they had watched us
appear for a moment on a high peak of water
and then dip down into the great caverns, and
then rise again, just like a bobbing cork in the
monstrous waves, but always drawing a little
nearer as each mountain tumbled upon us and
upheaved us and swept us forward. My
brother gripped my hand when at last I
sprang out of the boat and staggered up the
beach in a dazed and drunken way.

And then Agn6s turned round to his com¬
rades very calmly and said, < I ’ll thank you
lor a plug of tobacco, friends.*

226 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

CHAPTER VII

Henri, my brother, was enchanted to hear
of our discovery of the great blubber kettles
on Harbour Island.

‘That is excellent news,' he said, and
straightway we decided to take our small ship
out of Gazelle Basin, where she had lain so
snugly, to fetch those valuable pots. We were
wise enough, however, to wait until the gale
was spent. Even then we started too soon —
for in Kerguelen one gale is quickly followed
by another—and as I have to tell you, we had
the nearest squeak in seagoing destruction.
The capture of the blubber kettles nearly cost
us our ship and our lives, and, when I re¬
member the adventure that befell us, I marvel
that I am now writing the account of it.

It was ten days after my return with
Agn£s that we heaved up the anchor, put

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 227

up our canvas, and, leaving Gazelle Basin,
stood out to the open sea. No sooner had
we got as far, and it was not very far, than
we faced a nasty wind and an ugly sea. From
the north came one of those abominable gales
which howl almost unceasingly upon the
Island of Desolation and we had to beat up
against it, painfully and arduously, with the
little Charcot lurching and staggering like a
poor wounded beast, and with the infernal
wind buffeting her with brutal blows. It
was mad to force our brave boat into the
jaws of such a devouring gale, and, reluctantly
enough, we ran for Pigeon Harbour and
cowered there for two days until our patience
was quite spent. Agn6s had risked his life
and mine for a pipe of tobacco; Henri and I
were just as ready to run risks for those
precious kettles. So we made a second
attempt to get to Harbour Island and again
slipped out to sea. But the wind was as bad
as ever, and the waters were in convulsions.
Every gust, tearing at us with the force of
a thunderbolt, threatened to snap our masts

8a

228 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

into splinters and tear our canvas to ribbons.
Frenchmen as we were, impatient of the word

Retreat and without the slow enduring

©

patience of the Saxon race, we cursed the
gale, and surrendered to the inevitable. We
swung round and raced for Sandy Cove,
where we had found the safest shelter before.
We reached this harbour and ran home and
lowered our anchors. Here was safety any¬
how, we thought, and tried to forget the
kettles for a little while. Rut we did not
count upon the malign vengeance of that
wind from whose clutches we had slipped
away. It would not be balked. Suddenly
that roaring north gale banged round the
compass to the south-west. The little Charcot
was caught between two running seas and
captured by the new wind, and though she
resisted gallantly, both anchors dragged and
we swung astern on to the rocks.

Our feelings may be imagined but not
described. After all our adventures, our long
voyaging, our careful vigilance, here was our
brave ship stuck upon a rocky ledge in the

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 229

shelter of a cove which we had learnt to call
‘home.’ Havingescapedfrom the north gale, we
had been fairly caught by the south-wester, and
there seemed to be the most deadly likelihood
of losing our ship for ever. If the wind blew
hard from the same quarter we should be
fastened more securely upon those rocks, and
slowly but surely the J. B. Charcot would
be battered and broken before our eyes.

Henri and I were terribly alarmed, though
outwardly calm and confident. We had to
set an example to our men, and keep our
heads well screwed on, but our hearts sank
very low. The first thing to do was to make
all arrangements for a long shore life in the
event of losing the ship. I therefore called
for the ‘shipwreck bag,’ and all of us were
hard at work hauling up provisions and stores.
Then Henri ordered a boat to be lowered
so that we might take a rope ashore and
convey the goods to land. It was difficult
and dangerous work. The south-west gale
beat the boat back several times, and the tide
ran very strong. There was more than a

230 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

chance of losing a life or two in addition to
the loss of the ship. But eventually we
succeeded in running the boat aground, tied
the rope fast to a rock, and landed sail¬
cloth for tents, biscuits, tinned meats, tools,
matches, guns, spirit cans and spirit-lamp,
the sextant, nails and other stores which would
enable us to live until rescue came.

Meanwhile the tide was running out, and
the lower it got the higher rose the stern of
the J. B. Charcot on that infernal rock until
the deck was at an awful slant, and the bows
were pitched down as though the ship were
about to burrow its way into the sea floor.

Henri and I knew that the greatest danger
would come when the tide rose again. Then
we should see whether we were to lose or
save our ship. When that spring tide rose
it would bring with it a force that would
either float us off or break us on the rock.
No one could say beforehand which of these
two things would happen. We could only
wait—with sickening anxiety, and the torture
of hope and fear fighting a duel in our hearts.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 231

Yet so strong is habit, and so good is disci¬
pline, we sat down to our evening meal in
the cabin as though nothing were amiss.
Esnault had cooked the dinner as usual
though the galley was at a queer angle, and
tiie cabin was pitched up at one end so that
we had to cling to our plates to prevent
them from slipping off the table. Few of
us had any appetite: Sadness is a bad sauce
—and we were very sad at the thought that
this might be the last meal on the J. B.
Charcot. Only Larose was quite calm. To

» S ^ y sublime and unassailable,

was at that hour irritating and exasperating.
I wanted to hit him, to shake him out of
that fat and comfortable tranquillity, to make
him shout and get excited. Yet when I look
back upon that meal I am filled with admira¬
tion for the simple stolidity of that young
seaman. His appetite did not suffer. He
ate with the steady voracity which never (but
once) failed him during our voyage and
wanderings. I do not think that Larose had
less heart than any of us. But his hunger

232 15,000 MILES IX A KETCH

had to be satisfied, you understand. He was
like the immortal Porthos in The Three
Musketeers.

Finally the tide rose with the darkness, and
as it crept inch by inch up to the rock on
which our stern was stuck, I was in a fever
of apprehension varied with a torturing
hope. Gradually the bows lifted, the slant
of the deck became less acute, the cabin
shifted back in more horizontal lines, and our
hope became more settled in our hearts. The
wind had abated, the sea was more tranquil,
the J. B. Charcot was now like a ship at
anchor. Suddenly her stern gave a great
knock, and all her timbers trembled with the
shock, and our hearts leapt into our mouths.
The blow was repeated, and then once again,
and each time it seemed to us that the bottom
of our boat was being staved in. But after
the third knock there was a scraping tearing
noise which made our blood run cold and then
—we breathed with thankfulness. Our ship
was afloat! She had slipped off the rock and
was in her full depth of water, as a ship should

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 233

be. I think Henri and I were very grateful
to Providence, which had been so kind to us.
I think I came very near to tears—of sheer
joy. We were like children for a little while.
1 o us the J. JB. Charcot was a living thing.
We knew the spirit of her. We loved her
gallantry. Her loss would have been more
than the destruction of senseless timbers.
IV e should have mourned the death of a
good friend. We therefore rejoiced exceed¬
ingly and laughed with gladness when we
found her floating again. She had not even

sprung a leak. Her sturdy timbers were
sound and whole.

All that night we worked hard to get her
to safer anchorage. With a flare on board
casting a weird and flickering light upon the
dark cliffs and the ink-black waters, we
worked with winch and cable to haul her
further into shelter, and at last cast anchor in
good ground where she held fast. We had
no sleep, and were very tired, but when the
morning came we were very happy, f or there
was no need of the shipwreck bag on shore.

234 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and we gaily brought it back to the ship
with the other stores.

But still all the while those blubber kettles
were waiting for us in Harbour Island, and
we wanted them badly! So after two or
three days we left again, and this time, without
serious trouble, sailed through Tang Pass and
lay close off Harbour Island. We got our
kettles at last, or at least two of them. It
was not an easy job to bring them on board,
but we put them afloat and towed them in
a rowing boat to the side of the J. //.
Chcirx'ot, and then lowered tackle and hauled
them on deck. They were a most valuable
addition to our sealing equipment and worth
all the trouble we had taken to secure
them.

Now another strong gale came on. My
readers will get tired of those gales, but not
so tired as we were. You see, round the
Island of Desolation they were almost without
cessation, and our life was always disturbed
by the danger of them. It was then about
the 1st or 2nd of July and mid-winter at

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 235

Kerguelen, and that month and the next
were the worst we had. Hardlv a day of
fine weather came to give us a little comfort.
We worked, and ate, and slept, and watched,
with the wind howling round us, with seas
running high, with sudden squalls shrieking
at us, with no peace when we might relax our
vigilance. And when we were oft' Harbour
Island the gale blew with a strength strange
even to Kerguelen, so that we had to cling
to masts and ropes to save ourselves from
riding on the wind, and even heavy things
like ship’s buckets were blown away as if they
had been mere strips of paper. I never saw
anything like the force of it It seemed to
rattle the very bones in our bodies, and it
swept through the rigging with tearing, yelling
rage. We had to put double lashings .on our
furled sails to save them from being torn into
strips, and everything on deck, including our
rowing boats, had to be fastened down with
stronger ropes. Our anchor chains were
strained so taut that we expected them to
break at any moment, but fortunately we had

236 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

found a good bottom of sticky mud so that
the anchors could not dra<r.

O

W r e left Harbour Island on 8th July for
Gazelle Basin, and had a good strong carrying
wind at the start. But on 9th July it shitted
and we had our first gale from the east. Then
it dropped to south-east and stayed there, and
this brought a heavy snow-storm—the worst
we saw at Kerguelen. It snowed as though
the heavens were falling upon us in thick
white flakes. It buried our ship with a pure
white cargo, soft as down upon the deck and
spars, and anchor chains and wheel, and com¬
pass-box and rigging, so that our ship was
transformed into a snow-bird. Kerguelen was
no longer the Island of Desolation, black and
grim. It was an Island of White Enchant¬
ment. Every high mountain range, every
peak and precipice and terrace and ledge, was
covered with this cloak of ermine. For miles
one could see the snow-capped hills losing
their accustomed outlines under the burden
of those heavy falling flakes. The valleys
were six feet deep in snow, which remained

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 237

there for three weeks. Beautiful as the
scenery was in this white disguise, the weather
was very unpleasant and disagreeable to us
and seriously interrupted our work in Gazelle
Basin, to which we had now returned. There
would be a heavy snow squall every ten
minutes with brief intervals of bright sun¬
shine, during which the country sparkled and
glittered with an almost blinding radiance
until it became overcast again and a new
squall obscured the view.

At this point it will be well for me to give
my readers a more accurate and detailed
knowledge of our daily life during these
winter months. Apart from working the coal,
we took things a little easily. I knew that
when the summer came we should have a
time of hard fatiguing toil devoted to seal-
hunting and blubber boiling, and therefore I
wanted my men to have as much rest as
possible while there was an opportunity.

Sometimes we were as long as five days on
board without going ashore, lest a gale might
spring up and we could not return. It was

238 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

rather tedious at times, but we were fairly
snug, and kept cheerful. Although we were
at anchor we always kept the night and day
watches, which were changed every three
hours. Then those of us who had tucked
into our berths would awake at eight o'clock,
which was the hour of dawn.. I needed no
alarm clock. Larose’s ‘ biscuit mill ’ always
aroused me and, having lain for a few minutes
listening to those grinding teeth at work on
hard ship’s biscuits, I would turn out for my
coffee, which had been prepared at that time
by Esnault. During the night watch the
man on duty was privileged to sit in the
cook’s galley reading and smoking by the
light of an oil-lamp, so that he did not suffer
great hardships even during the snow squalls,
though it was fairly cold. After breakfast
the men always went to haul in the fishing-
net which had been put in over night, and
generally we caught enough to serve us for
one day’s meals. The fish were then handed
over to the cook, who prepared them very skil¬
fully, and at 10.30 we sat down to luncheon.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 239

It was not a bad menu. We used to have
our fresh-caught fish with macaroni, peas,
or rice, followed by a dish of mussels which
we found in large quantities on the rocks.
r l his was washed down with drinking water
(for we had got past our daily allowance of
wine), and afterwards we would linger over
tea and coffee, while those who liked smoking
had a quiet pipe.

After this dejeuner or luncheon we used to
do the real hard work of the day so long as
there was light. Our little procession would
tramp down to Sandy Cove, three-quarters of
an hours walk away, with picks and shovels,
shoulder high, and there we would toil like
navvies under the ledge of rock getting out
the coal. At first this was easy, for we had
only to pick out the loose lumps and send
them hurtling down. But after a while we
came to the solid face of the seam, and then
it was necessary to dp blasting work. . We
would make a hole in the seam, thrust in a
dynamite cartridge, light the fuse, and rush
away to a little distance. In a few moments

240 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

there would be a tremendous explosion and
down would come tumbling the black
boulders. It was, as I have said, a verv fair
quality of coal in Sandy Cove. But the
grain of the wood was still visible in it,
and sometimes it contained traces of amber.
As soon as the light waned and darkness
approached, we used to seize upon the biggest
lumps we could carry and, hoisting them on
to our shoulders, would tramp back that three-
quarters of a mile and cast our burden into
a heap on the beach. Day after day we used
to fulfil this duty until at last our constant
coming and going wore a pathway from the
beach to the coal-hole, which could be seen
clearly from a distance.

At these times we always carried a gun
with us and were almost sure of bringing
aboard a rabbit or two, or a couple of wild¬
fowl, as a contribution to the larder. It
was dark at 5 o’clock, and at 6 o clock we
were all very glad to sit down to the dinner
cooked by Esnault, who improved with ex¬
perience. This was a more elaborate affair

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 241

naturally than our dejeuner, and may be set
out in the following menu :—

Soup (from tins):

Fish:

Tinned meat:

Rabbit or Duck :

Vegetables (from tins):

Kerguelen Cabbage :

Coffee.

Not a bad meal, my readers will say. Yet
I confess that I became very tired of this fare.
It had a somewhat sickening monotony, and
the tinned things especially had no charm for
us. Nevertheless we had no right to com¬
plain for there was always plenty to eat, and

we might consider ourselves as the pampered
sons of fortune.

After dinner the crew would go to the
small hole forward and spend the time smok¬
ing and singing to the accordion played by
Agn£s, which was a continual source of
pleasure to them. In the cabin Henri and
I used to talk of Paris and family affairs, and
of books we had read long ago and now

242 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

remembered, discussing their plots and char¬
acters and ideas. To listen to our conversa¬
tion no one would have suspected that we
were on a desert island with France on the
other side of the world. We often used to
talk, also, of our boyhood. After we had
gone to sea we had been separated for some
years, but now that we had come together
again we ransacked our memories for the
experiences of our early days, and had many
a hearty laugh over old adventures and mis¬
chiefs, into which we had plunged as boys
together. Then I used to get out my Kipling
in the French translation, and get absorbed in
Kim or the Jungle Book , or Henri would read
to me, translating as he went along, out of
the German book and papers discovered in the
abandoned house on Observatorv Bay.

w w'

I was also busy making observations and
writing up my log. Every four hours during
the day and night one should make notes of
the direction and strength of the wind, and
the character of the clouds, and the humidity
of the atmosphere, and put on record the

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 243

readings of the barometer and thermometer.
I hope to publish all these notes in a more
scientific story of my expedition which I shall
write in French. During the daytime also I
interested myself in making a collection of
geological specimens and of shellfish, sea-
worms, and other small creatures which I
preserved in alcohol. These are now being
classified and examined by French scientists.
I also made a careful plan of Gazelle Basin
and the surrounding mountains, and took the

soundings of Kirk Harbour. So that, as you
see, I did not lead a lazy life.

By this time the captain and crew of the
J. B. Charcot had an appearance which would
have shocked our best friends. Our hair had
grown long, our clothes had worn to rags: at
least we had to darn and stitch and mend,
and ransack our wardrobes for oddments. I
wore some thick woollen vests which I had
brought from the South Antarctic Expedition
with Dr. Charcot, and I had also the naval
uniform which I used to wear when I was
serving as a naval recruit (according to our

244 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

conscript system) on board a French battle¬
ship. It was a curious place in which to don
this uniform, but nccessitas non fuibet leges.
My brother and the men let their hair and
beards grow long, and Agnes was more like a
Viking than ever with his fine blonde beard,
but I used to cut the hair close on my face
with clippers, as I always felt uncomfortable
if it grew to any length. I suppose we looked
as dirty a set of tramps as could be found in
the wide world. Yet we had traditions of
cleanliness and tidiness, and Sunda)' was our
washing day, when we went through an almost
religious ceremony of boiling our under¬
garments in a big kettle. The men, too, were
handy with needle and thread, and in their
spare time used to sit on deck sewing up the
holes and rents in their trousers and jackets.

I must not forget to say that on the 14th
of July we celebrated the feast-day of the
Republic in good style. We cracked our last
bottle of Madeira which we had kept for that
occasion, and, raising our glasses, honoured the
toast of* Vive la France!' My brother had

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 245

cooked a special dinner, and we had dessert of
dried plums and jam, followed by a glass of
rum. W e thought and spoke of ‘ the old folks
at home ’ in our dear native land, and our love
went across the wide waters to France.

It was about this time that Larose had a
serious loss. Having lost that he had lost
everything—for it was his appetite. It was
all due to a dish of mussels. Larose liked
mussels prodigiously, and as they were plenti¬
ful and Esnault cooked a vast quantity, he had
no need to be sparing of them. He was not.
He ate heartily and beyond the bounds of
what, to him, was moderation. I noticed
nothing unusual. By this time I was accus¬
tomed to the appetite of this fine fellow. But
on the following morning I was surprised that
he did not get up, and, going to his bunk, found
poor Larose in great suffering. There were
dark rings round his eyes; he was feverish, and
kept tossing from one side to the other, so
that I could see he was very ill. I dosed him
with medicine, but I am sorry to say that,
having failed to diagnose his complaint cot.

246 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

rectly, it made him worse. It was my brother
who enlightened me. ‘ Why, it must be those
mussels ! ’ he said, when I went to him for a
consultation, and then he told me that he had
sat and watched Larose eating them, with a
kind of horrible fascination. Esnault had
wanted to remove the dish at the end of
dinner, but Larose said : ‘ Hi, there, leave it
for a bit. They are too good to go begging,'
and there and then he made short work of
mussels enough for all the rest of us, if we
had just sat down to dinner! He paid a
heavy penalty for this enjoyment. He was
violently sick, and for several days was very
peaky over his meals. It was a miserable
condition for a lad to whom meal-time was
the most important hour of the day. How¬
ever, he recovered slowly, and not long after¬
wards I was surprised to see him eating
mussels again.

What gave me more concern was that at
this time Henri began to get seriously unwell.
It was not due to those confounded mussels,
but he had a touch of gastritis, caused, I think,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 247

by living continually on tinned foods, and it
made him look very haggard. He tried to
hide his illness from me, but I knew that he
lay awake at night and could get no rest
His nerves also became highly strung, for the
only thing that seemed to brace him up a
little was coffee, which he took at all times of
the day and night. This of course was bad
for him, and for the first time since my arrival
in Kerguelen I became low-spirited, and had
gloomy thoughts.

Nevertheless work had to be done, and
when September came Agn£s and I started
on a long boat trip to explore the coast-line
on the north-eastern side of Gazelle Basin and *
the great mountains of the interior. We
stopped first in Kirk Harbour, as there was
too much sea and a heavy rain-storm. As this
promised to last some time, we beached our
boat and walked back to Gazelle Basin across
the cliffs, but when fair weather set in we
returned and found our boat quite safe. We
then worked round to Elizabeth Harbour, and
on the night of the 16th of September put up

248 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

our tent at the bottom of this little bay. We
could not sleep a wink during the night, for,
we were surrounded by a large herd of seals
that had just returned to Kerguelen after the
winter. They made a fearful noise around
us, roaring in their deep, gruff, reverberating
voices, like lions and tigers in a tropical
jungle, and they came so close to us that
Agnes became scared.

‘Captain,’ he said, ‘if one of those big seals
rolls into this tent we shall be squashed ! ’

It was not an agreeable prospect certainly,
and many times during the night one or other
of us went out of the tent to throw stones
at those monsters lying about like big black
boulders in the darkness.

The next day, not having been ‘ squashed,’
we went farther along the coast and found a
number of penguin, petrel, and other eggs.
They were the first we had found in the Island
of Desolation. We explored the coast-line
from Elizabeth Harbour to Vulcan Cove and
found it very dangerous, for the sea was strewn
with rocks and uncharted islands. Indeed

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 249

our old chart was useless at this part of
Kerguelen, for even Elizabeth Point was
marked a mile too far to the north.

We now left our boat and went afoot down
a deep gorge through the mountains. It was
a marvellous walk of twelve miles along a
series of valleys full of freshwater lakes, with
the mountains rising straight and steep and
grim and black on either side of us. Agnes
and I were walking on a ledge of rock along
these valleys with the gorge below us and
the basalt walls rising sheer above us. It
seemed to me like a walk through Dante's
Inferno, and I remember Gustav Dora’s
famous pictures of the mountains of Hell.
But there were no devils to trouble us, and
down below in the valley moss and grass grew
with some luxuriance, and the sky high over
the prison walls was reflected in the fresh¬
water pools. We came through the Studer
Valley, named by a German party of ex¬
plorers, which is a long straight gorge driven
like a funnel through the mountains, and seen
by us very clearly when the J. B. Charcot

250 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

had sailed down Hillsborough Bay. It forms
quite a good road, with easy travelling.

After this tramp we went back to Eliza¬
beth Harbour. I wanted very much to
explore the northern bays, but we were over¬
taken again by dirty weather, and though
we tried to get out in our rowing boat, we
were beaten back to harbour again. We

O

spent two days watching the seals for the lack
of better occupation, and Agnes and I acquired
a great deal of new knowledge about those
creatures. As many of my readers have not
been so far as Kerguelen or other haunts of
the seal, it may be of interest to them if I
describe their habits more closely than I have
yet done in this story.

After the winter months, the full-grown
males came first to shore in the last days of
August. They were very big, being more
than twenty feet long. In the water their
trunks were hidden, but when they scrambled
upon the rocks, and especially when they were
angry, they elevated their short trunks, by
which they get their name of sea-elephants.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 251

and gave vent to deep roars. About 15th Sep¬
tember the females followed their lords and

masters, and as soon as they were on shore
they gave birth to their young. We saw
some of the little seals born, and the mothers

seemed to suffer a good deal, crying and
groaning in a strangely human way. At

these times the females seemed eager to go

out to sea again, but the old bulls kept watch¬
ful eyes on them and would hustle after them.

round them off from the rocky ledge, and push
them back on to the shore. The females
were only about one-third of the length of the
males, and each male had about twelve as his

wives. But they did not keep them undis¬
puted and unchallenged. Through the sea
came a throng of bull-elephants eager to fight
for the possession of the females. The old
fellows, as soon as they saw these enemies
approaching, rushed at a great pace to the
water’s edge to give instant battle to them.
Then a fierce and bloody fight would take
place, thrilling and fearful to any human being

who might be watching. One of the new-

9

252 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

comers would roll his eyes upon a
beauty on the shore and attempt to get
towards her. But he could only do so past
the bleeding and wounded body of an old
warrior who was already the hero of a hundred
fights. I saw one such duel which lives in
my memory. The bull-elephant who had
been first in possession raised himself on the
fore part of his body with his hind-quarters
right off the ground, and with his great jaws
gaping and uttering deep trumpet blasts he
awaited the coming of his foe. He found one
worthy of his strength, a male as big as him¬
self, as fierce as himself, as strong as himself.
They fought for twenty minutes head to head,
jaws to jaws, charging each other like batter¬
ing rams, shoving and pushing with mon¬
strous force, biting and gnawing at each other
with appalling ferocity. They made for each
other’s neck and scrunched their jaws into
the flesh of it, until shaken off and hurled
backwards by the other beast. The neck of
eadh sea-elephant was covered with long deep
cuts. Their blood poured down and made

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 253

ruddy pools among the rocks in which they
wallowed and struggled, still biting fiercely
and shooting out their necks with that quick,
sudden, powerful jerk of which I had learnt to
beware in my own combats with them. There
was something grotesquely terrible and soul-
affrighting in this combat between those two
titanic warriors. Yet my eyes were spell¬
bound by the haunting interest of it. At last
the male who had been first on shore weakened.
His gross body was panting and gasping. The
blood was streaming from a score of wounds,
one eye had been torn from its socket, and his
force was spent. Suddenly he gave up the
fight, and with a despairing roar he plunged
across the rocky ledge and disappeared into
the sea. The victor came leisurely to the
camp of the vanquished and, careless of his
own wounds, which had made him a mass of
gory flesh, careless also of the females who
were now his by right of conquest, lay down
in the centre of them and slept.

These war heroes do not pay the slightest
attention to their wounds, which heal so

254 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

quickly that in two or three days they are
cured. But to the end of their long lives
they bear the scars of these great fights, and
out of the water I have seen old sea-dogs
climb with torn hides and eyeless sockets and
missing or half-gnawed flippers as records of
the titanic warfare they have waged upon
their rivals and enemies. And always, when
I have seen them, there has come to my mind
Rudyard Kipling’s story of The White Seal ,
and his description of those great beasts who
fought in the breakers, and fought in the sand,
and fought on the smooth-worn basalt rocks
of the nurseries. A hundred times I thought
I saw Sea Catch—a huge grey seal with almost
a mane on his shoulders and long wicked dog¬
teeth. When he heaved himself up on his
front flippers he stood more than four feet
clear of the ground, and his weight, if any
one had been bold enough to weigh him, was
nearly seven hundred pounds. He was scarred
all over with the marks of savage fights, but
he was always ready for just one fight more.
He would put his head on one side, as though

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 255

he were afraid to look his enemy in the face,
then he would shoot it out like lightning, and
when the big teeth were firmly fixed on the
other seal s neck, the other seal might get away
if he could, but Sea Catch would not help him.

I remember now that Sea Catch was a fur
seal and not a sea-elephant like those round
Kerguelen, but Kipling’s description will
stand for the Berserker of those tribes that
fought upon the rocks at Elizabeth Harbour.
These big brutes are not afraid of attacking
man, and I have already described one great
fight we had with them. We had others
later in our history, and I will give praise to
the enduring courage of the warriors. Really
they were no match for us. Our agility was
more effective than their strength ; one gun
with its narrow tube was more a master of
death than their monstrous violence. But it
was dangerous when we were hemmed in by
the herd. They would come straight for us,
and when we were tackling one great roaring
fellow, the others would come ever so quietly
and steadily behind over the smooth rock

256 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

with their noiseless bodies and try to catch
us in their , jaws with that lightning thrust of
the head. We had to ‘look slippy/as Eng¬
lish sailors say. And never once would the
bull seals turn back while their females were
with them. ‘ Face to the foe in victory or
defeat’ is the watchword of the fighting seal.
When they were wounded it only angered
them the more, and did not make them faint¬
hearted or ready to yield. They only yielded
to Death, and they died fighting and roaring.
But men are tricky fellows, and we dwarfs
learnt to kill the giants. We even learnt to
frighten them—a thing that seemed much
more difficult when we first attacked them with
loaded clubs, which did not scare them at all
but only made them fierce. It is curious that
if we threw small pebbles at them they would
waddle away, and that is how we kept them
at a distance when we did not crave for their
society. The females’ eyes would flash with
a yellow fire when we played that trick upon
them, and I did not like the ugly look of
those eyes.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 257

When undisturbed, the seals lay around on
the rocks in families, each male surrounded
by his dozen wives, like an old Turk, and
keeping watchful, jealous eyes upon the other
bulls. For hours they would rest lazily, sleep¬
ing and dozing in luxurious ease. And with
monstrous comicality they would scratch
themselves with their flippers, rolling over a
little to get at some ticklish spot or curling
their tails up. However awkward they were
on shore, they were magnificent in their
strength and grace in the water, swimming
with the force and directness of a torpedo,
and careless of breakers that would smash a
boat to pieces. It was a great and glorious
thing to watch one of those huge breakers
rolling in, and to see the seals facing them
unmoved with dauntless strength and courage,

not shifted out of their position by the full
force of the hurtling sea.

But the little ones were the jolliest things
to watch, so mirthful and full of pranks and
the ^heer joy of life. When they are bom,
one baby to each mother, they are only three

258 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

feet long, and they are covered with very
smooth and very long black hair. After three
weeks this falls off and a greyish or yellow
hair, very close cropped, is left on their plump
little bodies. As soon as they are suckled,
the youngsters leave their parents and go
off all together. They have the best of fun
learning to swim in the shallow streams
where all day long they play, frisking and
barking like young dogs, so that the noise of
a seal nursery may be heard for miles. They
roll each other over and play all kinds of
pranks in the water and on the shore, scuff¬
ling, crawling, leaping, darting all together,
until they get tired and go to sleep on the
black sand under the basalt rocks, to wake
again in a little while and begin the game
again. The old men seals and the old women
seals take no notice of these brawling
youngsters, and soon they learn to fight like
the old warriors, to catch fish while they shoot
below the sea, to escape the killer whales,
and to capture their sweethearts by those
deadly combats on the rocks. Agn£s and I,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 259

lying by our tent in Elizabeth Harbour,
watched the mothers with their little ones,
who were still too young to go to the play¬
ground, and Kipling’s lullaby came singing
through my mind—

* You mustn’t swim till you ’re six weeks old
Or your head will be sunk by your heels,

And summer gales and killer whales
Are bad for baby seals.

‘ Are bad for baby seals, dear rat.

As bad as bad can be,

But splash and grow strong.

And you can’t be wrong,

Child of the open sea! ’

After six days at Elizabeth Harbour, when
we had ample opportunity of studying these
little ways of the sea-elephants and their babies,
my comrade and I took to the boat again and
fought our way back to the J. JB. Charcot.
It is almost needless to say that we had another
gale, and once more we put on our life-belts
and rowed until our arms ached and our hands
were blistered, over the surging sea, which
tried to drag us down into its depths and to
swamp us with its crested waves, and to bash

ga

260 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

us to bits with its blows and buffets. But
we escaped all this ferocity, and sprang ashore
once more in Gazelle Basin.

On board the little ship we found my brother
and his comrades making preparations to leave
the harbour in which, on the whole, we had
found safe shelter. We set up a flag-mast
on shore and a bottle containing a message
to any ship that might come that way, telling
the programme of our future, and saying that
we proposed to go to Observatory Bay for a
few months.

So we sailed out of Gazelle Basin on the
15th of October 1908, in search of new scenes
and new adventures.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 2G1

CHAPTER VIII

I am sure my readers, who by this time have
become accustomed to Kerguelen weather, will
be surprised if I do not immediately record
another gale. Have no fear! The gale was
not long in coming, though at the start of
our trip to another part of the wild coast-line
we lay becalmed near Bulforde Rock. In spite
of the wind having dropped, the sea was very
rough, and we were afraid of drifting on to
the rocks. We knew those Kerguelen calms,
and when we read the barometer we waited
for the inevitable north gale.

It came in a few hours with all its old
bluster and boisterousness. Sailing under a
small sheet we drifted steadily for shore, and
the lookout man kept shouting this abomin¬
able intelligence. Then the wind played its
usual game of blind-man’s buff and jumped to

262 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

the south-west with a romp and a roar, churn-
ing up the sea and catching us between the
two rolling tides, so that our ship was hurled
this way and that in a giddy, crazy, staggering
dance. It was simply diabolical, and the only
tiling we could do was to pour oil on the sea
to soften its wrath. I believe landsmen re¬
gard this oiling of the waters as a myth
invented by writers of fiction. Let me assure
them that it is really done in time of stress,
and that more than once we owed our escape
from an ugly sea to this quaint and primitive
custom.

Fortunately the change of wind enabled us
to stand out from the shore, and when the
gale had spent its strength we were out of
sight of land. For two days more we beat
up and down until we saw land again, and
finally we anchored at Grave Island after
six days at sea, during which we had gone no
further than what would be one day s sail in
fair weather.

We found anchorage here, and I went
ashore on Grave Island and found the relics

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 263

of the dead, which had given the mournful
name to this lonely place. There were about
thirty graves, and buried there were the
bones of American whalers who had made
this small island their headquarters, and who
by accident and disease had ended their life of
adventure and of the liberty of the sea and
found their last anchorage upon these rocks.
It was strange to stand among these graves
and to think of the rough hard)’ men who,
half a century ago, had stood here from time
to time between the whale-hunting to lower
one of their comrades and to cover his stark
body with a little earth and a few boulders.
Strange! These men who would have been
called wild men in any civilised society, who
lived for years together on their ships or in
the world’s most lonely places, who were
under no law save their own self-discipline,
whose language no doubt was coarse and
sometimes brutal, whose way of life was hard,
savage, and as elemental as that of the Scan¬
dinavian sea-lovers when history first began,
had been touched with sentiment and with

264 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

religious faith when they put the poor dead
clay of their comrades into these quiet graves.
They had carved crosses to put above the
graves, and on the beams they had cut Chris¬
tian texts of pious resignation and hope. I
could still read some of the dates and names
and texts, though many of the crosses had
fallen face downwards, gnawed through at the
base by rabbits. The oldest date I found was
1832 and the newest was 187.5. Some of the
crosses were well carved and decorated with
anchors, cut out of copper and wood, nailed on.

‘ Rest in peace ’; * Be ye also ready ’; ‘We
fade as the leaves’—these were some of the
words I deciphered as I stood on this little
desert island among the graves. There was
one small grave of a boy of ten years of age,
a poor little cabin-boy who had been brought
all this wild wav and then had died. What

w

strange lives and strange adventures had ended
on this rock amidst the eternal turbulence
of the sea ! I went away from Grave Island
rather pensively, and with serious thoughts.

I passed over to Hog Island, and here were

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 265

relics of other whaling and sealing adventurers.
I found the ruined remains of a hut, three or
four big kettles, a brick furnace, and lots of

spars. In the ruined hut I found a forge and
an\il, pieces of chain, and an old capstan, used
no doubt to drag dead whales ashore. Pro¬
bably these things had been handled on many
a day in fair weather and foul by the men
who now lay quiet in those graves I had seen,
lo me, a seaman and an explorer and a sealer,
each link in those broken chains, each rotten
spar, the rusty anvil, and the odds and ends of

rubbish, were eloquent of a life such as my
comrades and I were now leading. They
spoke to me of hard toil, of anxious hopes, of
the rough free days, and across the bridge of
time I met the spirits of those old whalers
who had now sailed into other waters in
which they lay to for eternity.

After we had snuggled under the cliffs of
Grave Island for two or three days, we went
round to Observatory Bay. We reached this
on the night of 15th October, having passed a
huge uncharted rock in the «fairway ’ which

266 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

lay in wait for any unwary ship which trusted
with too much faith to previous soundings.

At Observatory Bay we were rich in coal,
for the Germans had left a store round the
hut in which I had spent my eight lonely days
putting the house in' order, and where the
white face at the window had scared me so
horribly. Here we pitched our camp and
built up the shed and furnace which we
dignified by the name of ‘ factory.’ It was a
primitive structure, but it took us days of
hard work and we were proud of it. When
it was finished and ready for blubber-melting
we hoisted the French flag over it, and I can
give you no idea of the pleasure and pride
with which our eyes gazed upon the blue,
red and white of our national emblem, which
flapped above our heads in the gusty wind.
That flag stood for France and all the tradi¬
tions and glory of France, and all the senti¬
ment of race and faith which inspires the
hearts of Frenchmen. We felt more at home,
less isolated from the world, when that brave
flag was mast-high.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 267

Unfortunately it was a bad place for seals,
though a good place for boiling their blubber.
There were very few to be seen around, and
we knew that we should have to go hunting
in other waters. But meanwhile I toiled very
hard in the German house, which I used as a

workshop, and I had a perfect orgy of cask¬
making. I enjoyed myself in a quiet, indus¬
trious way. With my staves and hoops
spread around me, I was like some demon

carpenter rapping and tapping in that lonely
hut where the mice still played, watching
me from their holes with blinking eyes. I
made no less than sixty casks here, and,
I tell you frankly, they looked very fine
when they were all set out in a row ! It

would take a good deal of oil to fill them,
a good many seals to provide the blubber, a
lot of smoke and fire to make the oil, and
tremendous hunting campaigns to capture the
seals. But when all was done, and those casks
were filled, we should have a fine cargo in the
hold of the «/. B. Charcot .

This brought us to the last fortnight in

2G8 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

October, and it was splendid weather. I hope
my readers will be amazed when I tell them
that we had eight fine days without one gale.
I think this must have been a record for the
Island of Desolation.

On 2nd October I left on a boat trip with
Agnes. We rounded Molloy Point and pitched
our tent on this part of the coast, not without
danger and difficulty. We had a very rough
landing, through the heavy swell rolling into
Royal Sound and breaking upon the boulder-
strewn beach. But Agnes and I were getting
very expert in the handling of our boat, and
by good luck we managed to ride on one
of the rollers to the beach, and then, springing

out, dragged it ashore.

We dumped down our stores on the rocks
and surveyed our surroundings. A high range
of cliffs bristled with jagged peaks above us,
like iron battlements and bastions of a vast for¬
tress guarding the coast-line. But away to the
east of us the ground was fiat, and we could see
right across the land, north-eastward, to where
the sea broke upon the rounded headland.

r

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 269

Due north from where we lay was the vast
range of that high confused mass of moun¬
tains, pierced by the gorge through which
Agn£s and I had walked from Elizabeth Har¬
bour some months before, and crowned by
the Chimney-Top Peak, and Mount Crozier
and Castle Mount, * grim and awful, like
Dantes dream of the mountains of Hell.

An amusing incident occurred soon after

we were safe ashore. Our bags lay rolled up

together on the rocks, and straight towards

them came a big male sea-elephant with his

huge carcass moving swiftly over the ground.

For some reason which I cannot explain—

unless he took our stores for a sleeping seal

or some beast with whom he could engage in

deadly combat—the old fellow was evidently

aroused to curiosity and anger. I wanted

very much to see what he would do, but

Agn^s, seized with a sudden fear that our

provisions would be swallowed at one gulp in

the gaping jaws of the elephant, began to

shout wildly and hurled stones at him, so that
he retired.

270 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

I knew that we were near the spot which
the Americans had used as their headquarters
in the expedition of 1874 to observe the
famous transit of Venus, and I now set off
to find any relics of them that had been
left. We soon discovered a number of barrels
of cement, or rather we found the cement
hard and solid as rock, from which the staves
had rotted away. There was also a stove
with rabbits living in the oven. I could not
help smiling at that sight. So little accus¬
tomed were the rabbits to the ways of man
that they had actually made a home in an oven,
in which no doubt many of their respected
ancestors had been roasted. Among other
odds and ends found here was a tripod that
had been used for a telescope.

The next morning, although it was rather
rough, we started before sunrise on foot for
Prince of Wales Foreland by an unmapped
route. The sun rose soon afterwards, and a
scene of beauty and splendour surrounded us.
The golden arrows of the sun shot upon
distant peaks which broke them into dazzling

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 271

points of light; the basalt cliffs sparkled with
ten thousand facets of polished stone; the
snow-capped summits of the high mountains
were like fleecy clouds in the blue sky, and
the waters of the sea were dancing in the sun¬
light. It was a morning and a scene which
made the heart of man leap with the sheer joy
of life, and yet neither Agn£s nor I was very
joyous. I had never been quite careless and
high-spirited since Henri had become unwell
and the thought of his drawn and haggard
face, of his sleepless nights, and of his loss of
flesh and strength, made me very worried and
anxious. Agn£s was a sad and serious man
for quite another reason. A day or two ago
the crew of the J. li. Charcot had run out
of tobacco, and it was a tragedy to them.
Agnes bore his loss like a stoic, but I knew
he was suffering severely with a craving which
he could not satisfy. As for Jean Bontemps,
our boatswain, he was becoming a dazed and
roken man. It was real torture to him.
He cut out the pockets of his clothes, which
had become impregnated with tobacco, and

272 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

chewed them until they were tasteless. He
even broke up the bowl of a clay pipe and
chewed those pieces until they also were of
no use to him. Then he brooded and drooped
and lost some of his old grip upon the plain
duties of life, and sank into a bewildered
muddle-headed state of mind. If Henri told
him to do such and such a thing he would say,
‘ Yes, Captain,’ and an hour later, perhaps,
my brother would find him doing something
quite different, and often something quite
unnecessary, painfully and laboriously. I
had never quite realised before what slaves
men become to this craving, and it made me
thankful that I was free of the habit. This,
however, is a digression, and I must return to
our tramp.

The whole line of the coast was strewn
with wreckage, the shattered timbers of old
boats that had been cast ashore on these cruel
rocks. There were also the bleached bones
of hundreds of great seals showing what huge
hunts had taken place here in former times,

' and how many of those elephants had been

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 273

massacred. Vet the coast was still crowded
with seals—great nurseries of youngsters who
had just left their mothers and were gambol¬
ling about like young puppies, barking and
playing pranks in the way I have previously
described. They were a little shy of us at
first as we walked among them ; but they did
not scurry away, but permitted us to stroke
them. All the males, however, young as
they were, were fiercer than the females, and
darted their heads out at us and opened their
jaws and barked. It would not be long
before these lusty young fellows became
warriors like their scarred and wounded sires,
whose spirit they had inherited, and whose
fierce deeds they would emulate. But the
little girl seals were gentle and timid, and it
was pretty to see them getting playful and
coy as we stroked their hair. They were not
very beautiful, but by a little imagination
one might have believed them to be the
mermaids of old mythology whose siren
songs enchanted Ulysses and his comrades as
their ship sailed among them.

274 1,5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

We found two uncharted points on the
coast against which the sea dashed with
heavy breakers, and as we tramped on we
came to a big stream pouring into the sea
down a valley in the hills. Near here we
came across the skeleton of a ship’s keel.
She had been a sailing boat—a schooner, I
should say, of about 150 tons—and now was
nothing but a rotten carcass with a few gaunt
ribs sticking out. There was also a good deal
of other wreckage here.

We walked on and on, and then we had the
greatest sensation of our lives. I shall never
forget the profound and startling emotion of
that moment. Even now as I write, with the
memory of it vivid in my mind, my heart
beats a little quicker at the thought of that
thrill, of that shock of surprise and gladness.
It was about noon, and Agn£s and I were
thinking of the meal which it was time to
have, and we were both silent, gazing ahead
of us and across the plateau to the north¬
east. Suddenly we both stopped, with low
exclamations, inarticulate and emotional, and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 275

our eyes stared in a north-easterly direction,
as though we had been bewitched. I think I
was the first to speak.

‘ Smoke!’I said. ‘ It is a steamer ! ’

There, away on the far horizon, was a trail¬
ing wisp of smoke curling steadily round the
foreland, as it seemed to us, though it was far
from the coast-line. Only a thin wreath of
smoke, but to us, exiles on a desert island for
ten long months, wanderers in a world of
loneliness, it brought a message of humanity
and gladness, so swift and sudden and un¬
expected that we were spell-bound.

Agn&s gave expression to his own dearest
hope:

‘ Captain, he said, ‘ I would give anything if
that boat came in and brought some tobacco! ’

We were both wildly excited, and not for
a single moment did our eyes leave the trail
of the smoke. Our very souls kept vigil
over that little smudge of moving shadow
against the grey-blue sky. «Is she coming
round ? ’ We asked the question with almost
torturing anxiety. Secretly each of us believed

276 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

that she was a steamer on her way to Australia,
but we thrust the horrid thought away from
us and buoyed ourselves up with the hope
that she would come into one of our bays,
bringing new faces, new voices, new friends,
news of the outside world, and treasures for
exchange, to us poor lonely vagabonds who,
truth to tell, were getting very weary of our
loneliness, and craved for other society than
our own. So we kept watching and waiting,
and presently we were dismayed and ready
almost to weep, because the smoke was lost
to our view behind the headland.

‘ Oh, she is going away ! ’ cried Agn£s dole-^
fully, and I shared his misgivings, and became
very gloomy. But I said :

‘ Let us wait, my friend, perhaps she will
come round the coast, and we shall see her in
the sound here.’

We calculated the time she would take to
get round. It would take a long time, and
we were very impatient!

* Let us have that meal,’ I said. ‘ It will
help to pass the time.’

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 277

So we sat down and pulled out our hard
old biscuits and our stale tinned meats, and
munched away, wondering and wishing about
the steamer, conjuring up the delight of grasp¬
ing the hands of good seamen—perhaps from
France!—of dining on board with these new
friends, of telling them all our own adven¬
tures. Several times, just to tease poor
Agn&s, whose lips were watering at the
thought of tobacco, and sometimes because
my hope made fools of my eyes, I shouted
out that I could see the boat again. At last
I really saw her. Yes, there was no mistake.
There was the trailing smoke-wreath, creep¬
ing round Prince of Wales Foreland. Oh,
the goodness of it 1

1 here she is ! I said, but Agn&s thought
I was joking. I had said it too often to be
believed. But then he too saw the steamer
-we could see her black hull now—and he
jumped up like a madman, and danced wildly
about the rocks, waving his arms and crying,

‘ Tobacco 1 Tobacco 1 ’ 6

Unluckily we had left our rowing boat-at

278 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Molloy Point before setting out on our tramp,
so that we could not row out to her when she
came nearer to us. We saw her pass Murray
Island, Long Island, Boyle Island, keeping
clear of all those islets which strew the sound.
It seemed as if she were steering straight for
Observatory Bay. Agnes was rushing about
gathering kelp with which lie made a pile. 1
knew what he was about. He wanted to

make a bonfire to signal to that passing vessel.
I was tempted to let him set fire to that stuff
to see the flames lick up as a message that
human beings were on the rocks offering salu¬
tation to the newcomers. But then I stopped
him, sternly and just in time. It would have
been horrible if that steamer had put round,
with the idea that we were shipwrecked,and had
herself run aground on this brutal coast. She
disappeared at last behind Grave Island, and
we were uncertain whether we should ever see

her again.

Possibly she had put in for repairs

into one of the innumerable bays of Kerguelen,

and having made them, would steam away
again before we had had speech with her.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 279

That was a melancholy prospect, but again
we played with hope. We could do no more
exploring now. We must get back swiftly to
the J. B. Charcot. We must tell our com¬
rades of the stranger within our gates. We
must follow that steamer as fast as our legs
would carry us over the wild ground. So,
always talking of the steamer and tobacco,
Agnes and I trudged back to Molloy Point]
where we found our boat again.

But we were overtaken by the worst of
bad luck. A great gale broke loose upon
us, and a heavy snow-storm enveloped us. It
snowed and snowed till we could see nothing
but those falling white flakes and the soft
white carpet that was now upon the black
rocks. It snowed until there were white hills
around us. It snowed until we were nearly
buried. If we had dared to attempt a boat

upon a rock

and drowned. So .11 day long „ e l, y in our
tent, cursing our file, thinking and talking of
the steamer, .„d kicking the canvas to relieve
it of its white weight It was a stupid busi-

280 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

ness, this kicking the snow off our tent, while
perhaps our comrades were fraternising with
the crew of that good steamer! Presently
the snow melted, melted on top of us and
melted all round us, while the gale blew more
fiercely, so that soon we were wet even
through our sleeping-bags, wet to the skin
on the soppy ground. We had nothing to do
but eat. We made a menu to last through¬
out the day. One hour we had a cup of tea.
The next hour we had a cup of cocoa. At
the third hour, by way of a change, we took
a cup of tea again. At the fourth hour we
greeted another cup of cocoa with enthusiasm.
And so on, until we became tired even of
eating and drinking, though it is wonderful
how it made the time go !

All that day and night Agnes and I
chatted more volubly than usual, and to keep
our thoughts away from the steamer, which
made us get too excited and impatient, I
spoke to my comrade of Paris, to which he
had never been, and told him about the
theatres and the fine shops, and the Bois de

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 281

Boulogne, and the life of the city. We also
read a little of Voltaire and Lafontaine, which
we had carried with us, and Agnes was an
interesting and original critic, viewing tilings
with the simple unbiassed mind of a seaman
who had never been to Paris !

1 he next day it was still too rough for the
boat, but our impatience would no longer be
restrained, and we decided to go to the sum¬
mit of the high hill near the bay, from which
we might search around for any sign of the
steamer. It was a stiff climb, 1500 feet up
those black slippery rocks, and the wind was
so terrific that sometimes we had to crawl on
our hands and knees and even to lie flat on
our stomachs to prevent ourselves from beirm
blown down the precipices. At last we
reached the topmost peak, and with my tele¬
scope I swept the waters of Observatory Bay.

1 here, to my great joy and to Agnes’s up¬
roarious delight, I saw the steamer anchored
close to our own little ship. It was a

The e i ^ l°l 6yeS S ° re with loneliness.

1 he Island of Desolation was no longer so

282 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

desolate. Oil, it was a gay place, for my
brother was receiving visitors.

Goodness knows how Agnes and I scrambled
down the mountain again, sliding and slipping
and tumbling and running and bounding until
we reached our boat. We were in a fever
of excitement. Hut it was too late and too
dark to row homewards that night, and we
had to wait until the following morning to

o o

pack up and get away. Our original intention
had been to explore the surrounding country
extensively, but, of course, with that steamer
in Observatory Bay, such a thing was impos¬
sible to human nature, and Agnes and I had
only one thought—to get back. Owing to
the wind, we rowed for ten hours until we
were utterly exhausted, hut at last we came
alongside the ./. D. Charcot. The steamer
had gone ! Fortunately, as we found out,
only to find a good place for an anchorage
and headquarters. And as I stepped on deck
Henri handed me a packet of letters from
France, and to Agnes a roll of tobacco I

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 283

CHAPTER IX

MV brother told me that the vessel which
had steamed to our Island of Desolation was
the Jeanne JArc, commanded by Captain
Ring, a Norwegian, like all his crew. They
had come to establish a great factory for
melting the blubber of whales.

Henri had been sitting with his telescope
on the roof of the German house when he had
first seen the trail of smoke, many miles
away out at sea. He could hardly believe
his eyes, but through his glass he saw the
steamer quite clearly. He followed it with
the same breathless interest which had held
Agnds and me in its grip, and with the
same hopes and fears, rejoicing when he
realised that the ship was making steadily
up Royal Sound. As she came she sounded
her whistle, and then Henri saw that Bon-

284 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

temps, who was working by the factory, had
seen the smoke and the ship and heard the
signal. For a moment our bos’n stood as
though turned to stone, with one hand shading
his eyes. Then he threw down his pick and
gave a strange yell, and, to my brothers
amazement, began running round the shed,
round and round and round again like a mad
dog. There is no doubt, I think, that the
sight of that steamer had turned poor Bon-
temps’s brain for a little while. Like Agnes,
he had only one thought—tobacco! He
craved for it, like a shipwrecked sailor for
fresh water. It was the one great need and
passion of his whole being, and the idea that
that steamer might be coming with tobacco,
or might, by some fearful stroke of evil
fortune, not come, after the vision had met
his eyes, worked a madness in his mind.

When at last the Jeanne ^reappeared,and
dropped anchor in Gazelle Basin, my brother
and his crew rowed out to her and hailed her.
The Norwegians were the first to ask a ques¬
tion. ‘ Are there many whales about ? M e

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 285

haven’t seen any ! ’ ‘ Any amount,’ came the

answering shout. ‘ Have you got any tobacco
on board ? ’

This was the greeting between the new¬
comers and the ‘oldest inhabitants’ of the
island. Then Henri went on board and
grasped the hand of Captain Ring, and the
Norwegians—there were more than a hundred
of them—crowded round, eager to hear his
story and to obtain from him a store of facts
about Kerguelen. But the first good thing
they gave in return was the packet of letters
from Franee. It turned out that our parents
had heard of the proposed voyage of the
Jeanne d'Arc to Kerguelen, and had taken
this opportunity of sending their love and
news to the exiles far away. I need not say
how wonderful it was to us to have those
precious documents, to read them over and
over again, to devour greedily every little
scrap of news about our family and friends
contained in them. We were like Rip Van
Winkles, who had come back to life acrain
after a long sleep, or like prisoners who,

280 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

after a term of servitude in the silence of
a living tomb, come out to hear all that has
happened in the world since they were put
away. I think my readers will have no diffi¬
culty in imagining the condition in which
Henri and I, after I had joined him again, sat
in our cabin with those letters before us and
talked over every line of them.

To go back to the Jeanne d Arc and the
Norwegians, it turned out that they had been
two weeks in Kerguelen' before they had dis¬
covered our small ship. They had gone first
to Gazelle Basin, keeping a sharp look-out for
us. There was a big gale on, and they saw
the water blown high in vapoury spray by the
wind, so that they believed it must be the
smoke from our fires. They sounded their
whistle in shrill blasts as a signal to us, but
soon realised their mistake. Then they saw
quite clearly the pathway we had formed by
going daily backwards and forwards between
Sandy Cove and our anchorage. Upon going
ashore they discovered the bottles telling
them of our future plans and probable where-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 287

abouts. h rom Gazelle Basin some of the
officers and crew went in a motor-launch to
look for a suitable place in which to build
their factory, and afterwards, in the Jeanne
(VA.ic , steamed to Sunday Harbour. Here
they dropped anchor and, climbing to the top
of a hill to survey the surrounding country,
saw a ship in one of the bays.

1 he readers of my tale who are not so
familiar with the geography of Kerguelen as
I am, will guess perhaps that the Norwegians
were looking down upon the J. B. Charcot.
Truth to tell they were not. They were
looking at a Frencli brig called the Carmen,
commanded by Captain d’Astd. By an ex¬
traordinary coincidence two vessels had arrived
at the Island of Desolation, after we had
lived there alone, with no other human being
within many hundreds of miles of us, for ten
long months. This news from the Norwegians
that Frenchmen were on the island was the
cause of great excitement to Henri and me
and the rest of our little crew. It was good
to think that in a little while, perhaps, we

288 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

might grasp the hands of our compatriots and
hear news from France, and news from Paris!
That was an immense treat in store for us.

It seemed that Captain d Aste had heard
about the J. B. Charcot. He had read an
account in the papers of our proposed ex¬
pedition, and that had given him the idea that
perhaps he also might go sailing round the
Island of Desolation. A rich and charming

O

widow had fitted out his expedition and
bought the brig in Marseilles, and with a crew
of twenty on board he had followed in our
track. The Norwegians in their turn had
heard of the Carmen , and now they went on
board and told Captain d'Astd of the news
they had found of us in Gazelle Basin.
Through those good fellows he sent greet¬
ings to us, and hoped we should soon meet.
Then the Jeanne dArc had steamed round to
Observatory Bay and had found the J. B.

J J i

Charcot. They were absolutely astounded at
the smallness of our boat, for they had been
looking for a big sailing ship! They were
very glad to meet Henri, but stayed only a

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 289

little while before searching further for a
good place in which to plant their factory.

It was astonishing what a change the
arrival of these two ships made to us. In
leality we were just as lonely. The Jeanne
JArc had gone away to another bay. The
Carmen was on the other side of Kerguelen,
and around us still were the great barren
mountains with no human being upon them.
\ et we had a sense of companionship, of an
almost bustling human society. The arrival
of the Norwegians was a topic of incessant
interest to us. The knowledge of their

presence in Kerguelen was cheering to us in
the extreme, and the thought of Captain

d Aste and his French brig gave us something
to look forward to with joy.

But now the time had come for us to work
hard. Seals were swarming in the bays, our
casks had to be filled, more casks had to be
made, and great days of hunting lay ahead
of us. I became very busy again at the
cask business, and this time I took an ap¬
prentice like a true master of craft. It was

290 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

#

Agnes, and a very handy fellow he was, so
that between us we could do a lot of work.

On 17th November we left Observatory
Bay with the J. B. Charcot for seal-hunt-
ing. We dropped anchor between Charmner
Rock and the shore upon which Agnes and
I had lain in our tent kicking the snow
off' the canvas after we had sighted the
Jeanne ciArc. It was not a safe anchorage,

o 7

because the sea-bottom was a very bad ground
of rock and sand, and our anchors would
drag if a south-westerly gale beat up. How¬
ever, we put our trust in luck (a most fickle
mistress when she rides upon the wind) and,
lowering the boats, went on shore. Great
herds of seals were lying lazily upon the rock
ledges, and we went among them with deadly
intent. For hours we fought with those big
beasts, and if a spectator had been watching
from a high rock. Ins soul would have stood
aghast at the horror of it. It was butchers’

O

work, only redeemed by the monstrous size
of those sea-elephants, by their fierceness and
brute strength, and by our own puny stature.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 291

We were but pigmies against those herds of
grotesque and gargantuan creatures. It was
like an attack of primaeval men upon the
mammoths and megatheria of the pre¬
historic world. For miles around the rocks
must have resounded with the noise of battle,
with the angry bellowingsof the bull-elephants’
and with our own hoarse shouts. Blood
bespattered the rocks, and we fought ankle
deep in puddles of gore, and red streams
trickled over the ledges and stained the sea.
Butchers’ work ! Filthy, horrible, and brutal
work. Yet we steeled our hearts, and were
not over nice or sensitive, and when the twilight
glimmered in the pearl-grey sky and shadows
roamed among the rocks, many great corpses
lay stretched out upon the shore. With our
knives we hacked at those dead monsters—it
was more horrid than the killing-stripping
them of their skins, and slashing off the warm
white blubber. When night descended upon
us we had four full boat-loads of that precious
Stuff and another great pile upon the rocks,
and we rubbed our greasy hands and called

10 a

292 1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

it ‘a good day’s work.’ We got the boats
safely alongside the ship and hoisted the
blubber on board, so that the deck was crowded
with it. That night, as a contrast to our
hideous work of the day, the sky was tilled
with a divine beauty, and we had a remark¬
able aurora australis, the best of the ten
which astonished our vision during our stav
in Kergifelen. Across the sky there glim¬
mered bands of light, of a radiant whiteness
and violet and purple, so that a glory was
above our little ship, and enchantment Hashed
upon the mountain ridges of the land.

The next morning we went on shore again
to collect the remaining store of blubber, but
a strong north wind was blowing, and as the
barometer was falling, we were afraid that the
gale would jump to the south-west. We
should have been more careful, but we were
excited with the treasure of our great seal
hunt, and so busy that we did not notice the
increasing wind. Only my brother remained on
board, and I, with Agn6s, Bontemps, Larose
and the boy, were hurling the pieces of blubber

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 293

into the two boats without a thought of the
danger that was lying in wait for us. Pre¬
sently I noticed that my brother had hoisted
a signal to come quickly, and then for the
first time I realised that the south-wester was
rolling up an ugly sea, and that we should
have a tough time in getting back to the ship.
I shouted to the men to get away, and Agn£s
and I, with a full boat load, pushed off and
rowed for our very lives. Bontemps, Larose
and the cook followed in the other boat, which
was also piled high with the white fat. Agn&s
and I were making good headway in spite of
the dangerous sea when I heard shouts from
my other comrades, and, looking round, saw
that they were in great trouble. Their boat
was too heavily loaded, and when they had
got half-way between the J. B. Charcot and
the shore, I saw that they would certainly
sink unless something were done without a
moments delay. It was impossible to get
any of their blubber on to our own weight,
so I shouted to them to throw it overboard.
Larose and the cook began to do this in

/

294 1,5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

frantic haste, while Bontemps at the oars
tried to keep the boat steady, but the blubber
had been cut into such small pieces that it
was difficult to relieve the weight in the
boat quickly enough. I was half frantic with
anxiety, for I feared that my poor comrades
were doomed. They kept trying to come
alongside, but were always beaten back, and
their boat was lurching in an ugly fashion.
Henri threw life-belts to them, made of
canvas, stuffed with kapok, and mattresses
stuffed with the same material. If their boat
went down they might still have a chance of
life, for these floating mattresses can support
three or four men. Agnes and I had suc¬
ceeded in getting alongside our ship, and at
last, much to their own surprise and ours, to
say nothing of our joy, the other men pulled
close, and were hauled on board. It was a
very narrow shave for all of us, and we were
very thankful at having escaped the price of
our recklessness. Then we hoisted anchor
and ran to Island Harbour, which, you will
remember, is not far away, in Royal Sound.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 295

Here we stayed five days in dirty weather,
exploring three islands in the rowing boat and
on foot, and shooting a few rabbits. Then
we returned to Observatory Bay to our oil
factory, and worked hard for two days at the
filthy work of blubber-boiling. But we were
well pleased when, at the end of our toil, we
had filled twenty barrels of fifty gallons each
with the best seal oil.

It was now early in December, and we

sailed with a number of empty casks and two

kettles to meet Captain d’Ast£ on the Carmen

in Weinock Bay. This was to be purely a

pleasure trip for the sake of a greeting with

our compatriot and his little crew of French
seamen.

Did I say a pleasure trip ? Alas, it was a
tragedy! We were running near Mouse
Island (in Royal Sound) when a sudden snow
squall blinded us and clothed us in its white¬
ness. We could see hardly a yard across the
bows, for the snow came down as though the
gods were having a tremendous pillow-fight,
and dropping a heavenful of feathers We

296 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

were horribly afraid of being 1 driven on to
rocks, for we were running swiftly with the
wind hard astern, with our boom right out
and with our main-sail stretched taut. Sud¬
denly, when we were going on another tack,
there was a loud report as though a gun had
burst, and a splintering of timbers and wild
flapping of sheets. Our boom had broken
clean in two, and the weight of those pieces
falling upon the deck had dragged down the
main-sail, which was now without control, so
that the fierce wind worked its will with it,
and split it into shreds which flapped wildly,
like sea-birds with wounded wings. We were
in a pitiful plight, drifting helplessly on that
dangerous coast. The squall ceased as sud¬
denly as it had burst upon us, and then we
saw that we were almost ashore on Mouse
Island. Another two minutes and we should
have been smashed to splinters. We worked
ferociously to escape this doom. Quickly we
rigged up a storm sail and mizzen, and under
these sheets we ran for our old anchorage off
Grave Island. Next day, as some compensa-

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 297

tion for our disaster, we were favoured with a
gust of good luck. An east breeze blew (the
rarest wind oft Kerguelen), and with this we
got back to our headquarters in Observatory
Bay. But we had suffered a real calamity.
II hat were we to do with our ragged main¬
sail, torn to tatters, and with our broken
boom ? It was impossible to mend the boom,
and we had no spar big enough to replace it.
The only thing to do was to abandon a boom
altogether and to use free tackle instead.
With regard to the sail, we had to rely upon
careful tailoring. Fortunately Henri, my
brother, is a first-class sailmaker, having been
mate for a long time on a big four-master.
Bon temps also knew a good deal about sail-
darning^, so these two sat down to serious
wotk. They had to cut about half the sail
away, so cruel had been the damage, and to
let in fresh pieces from the canvas we had in

store. It was an eight-days’ labour, and that
amount of lost time.

M

I decided to use the time, as far as I
was concerned, by another excursion in unex-

298 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

plored territory around Long Island and else¬
where. This time I took Larose, as Agnes
was required by my brother on the ship,
being so intelligent and trustworthy. Larose
and I, therefore, took to the rowing boat,
with sufficient stores for a weeks trip, and
worked our way between Long Island and
the mainland. Here I was startled by an
extraordinary sight. It was a row of long
white buildings! I rubbed my eyes and
wondered whether I were dreaming, or
whether I had suddenly been bereft of my
senses. Then I saw our old friend the
steamer, and immediately I guessed the mean¬
ing of those remarkable buildings. The
Norwegians were putting up their factory.
Indeed, by a kind of miracle, they had already
built a number of white wooden sheds of a truly
magnificent appearance, on such a place as
the Island of Desolation.

Naturally, Larose and 1 desired to pre¬
sent our compliments to the builders, and,
rowing as though a vision of Paradise had
suddenly opened before our eyes, we arrived

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 299

at the Norwegian station in the very nick
of time for dinner. Larose, of course,
was dreamy-eyed with joy, and proceeded
to reveal to an astonished crew the vastness
of his appetite. For myself I can truly
say that those days with the officers and
crew of the Jeanne dArc were a continual
delight. It was good to meet those fine
cheery Scandinavians, to sit in the officers’
cabin chatting over adventures, to see so
many new faces, to feel once more that
there was such a thing as human society, to
hear the chatter of voices and the music
of laughter, and to be amidst all the bustle
of a big ship, which, after my long loneliness,
seemed like a noisy city seething with busy
life. It was good—oh, very good !—to sit
down to a new dinner-table and to eat new
food. Good heavens I I shall never forget
the thrill with which I saw a plate of porridge
put before me. Porridge! It tasted like the
ambrosia of the gods. And there were eggs,
and Norwegian salt-fish, and jam, and all sorts
of amazing and delectable things. We had

300 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

little evenings on board. I began to remember
that I had gentle blood in my veins, that I
had not always been a savage on a desert
island, killing big beasts and cutting them up.
Why, the cabin of the Jeanne d'Arc was like
a drawing-room in Paris ! We had concerts,
for there was a gramophone on board which
played the latest operas to us. On the Island
of Desolation, with the great black mountains
stretching away in a solid sea of grim un¬
trodden peaks, I first heard the melodious
strains of ‘ The Merry Widow,’ and my friends
told me how it was ‘ all the craze ’ in Europe.
They made a hero of me ! Of this wild, dirty
ruffian called Raymond Rallier du Baty!
They asked a thousand questions about our
trip. Again and again they expressed their
astonishment at the tiny ship in which we had
ventured so far. And then they were never
tired of hearing all about Kerguelen, and for
hours we talked the jargon of the sea, of sound¬
ings and wind force, and barometrical readings.
They asked if I thought the place they had
selected for their factory was a good spot.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 301

‘ Yes/ I said, ‘ it is admirable. There is a
good beach and a stream of fresh water—
but’—they looked anxious at this ‘but’—
* I am afraid,’ 1 said, ‘ that you will find no
whales in Royal Sound/ They were dis¬
mayed at this news, and afterwards it turned
out to be right, so that they had to go a long

way from their headquarters to the whale¬
hunting.

On my side I was intensely interested in all
these arrangements and plans, and especially
in the building of the factory. They had
come with a magnificent equipment, and
brought the sheds in pieces ready to be fitted
up, and carpenters and smiths, and other
craftsmen in addition to the ordinary crew.

It was a different thing from the J .. B.
Charcot 1

They were good fellows, those Norwegians,
and I remember them with gratitude. Captain
Ring was the kindest of men. Mr. Elleffsen,
the manager of the factory, could not do
enough for me. They were prodigal in their
generosity. I told them I wanted to ex-

302 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

plore the country on the other side of a narrow
neck of land called Swains Haulover, and
that Larose and I would have to drag the
boat across. But the Norwegians would not
allow us to attempt this alone. They came
as our escort, and Larose and I walked with
a gay company. For Captain Ring and Mr.
Elleffsen and all the officers came to help
us, and hoisting the boat on their shoulders,
carried it for three-quarters of a mile, while
others carried our provisions and stores,
which were all dumped down on the shore of
Swain s Bay. They shook hands with us most
heartily, and wished us good luck and a safe
return, and then went back to their own ship,
leaving us with very warm hearts at the
thought of so much kindness.

Well, there were Larose and I on the
edge of the sea, facing an unknown tract of
country. We were out for adventure, and,
packing our stores into the boat, pushed off
and tried to row northward. But a strong
gale broke upon us, and we were beaten back
among the islands. At 9 o'clock at night,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 303

when it was nearly dark and the wind had
dropped, we rowed across to the opposite shore
and saw the magnificent and unforgettable
sight of the setting sun lighting up the snow¬
capped summit of Mount Ross, 6000 feet high.
It was overspread with an immense white
cloud like a parasol, and flushed with rose-
pink in the sunset. At midnight we reached
the head of an unnamed and uncharted bay,
and here we put up our tent and, snuggling

into our sleeping-bags, took a well-earned

rest.

%

On the following day Larose and I set out
on a long tramp in the quest of some hot
springs reported to exist in the neighbour¬
hood. We searched all day, but did not see
any, and I feel convinced that those hot
springs are of a mythological character. We
again slept in our tent for the night, and then,
early in the morning, struck across land and
reached Table Bay at night, after a very hard
day. We had tramped steadily for many
hours through a country wilder even than any
had yet explored. Once we came to a

304 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

mountain torrent surging below in a deep
rocky gorge, too wide to jump, so that we
had to make a long detour southward. At
last we found a big boulder caught between
the sides of the gorge, which we used as a
bridge, after losing two hours by this delay.
Then we had to cross a range of uncharted
ice-hills, steep and sharp and slippery, across
which we stumbled, suffering now painfully
from foot weariness. We had come in walk¬
ing shoes in order not to be weighted down
by heavy sea-boots: mine were nothing
stronger than Paris boulevard shoes, and

O

they were not designed for the rocks of
Kerguelen. They were torn and cut to
tatters, and I had to tie a piece of string
round one foot to keep the sole on. I had
gloomy forebodings of the return journey.
It would be an awful thing to walk back
barefoot.

Larose and I were thoroughly exhausted
when we reached Table Bay after that grim
struggle over the ice-mountains, but after a
rest we wandered about the shore for a little

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 305

while, and found a cave which excited our
interest. It was a fair height up in the face
of a steep basalt cliff, and I was first attracted
to it by seeing some pieces of wood on the
beach below, and then by a number of fallen
boulders, which, either by accident or human
design, made a series of steps up to the
hole in the rock. We climbed up and found
ourselves in a strange dwelling-place. It
had evidently been inhabited by shipwrecked
men. In the centre of the cave was a large
stone, blackened with fire, and around this
were five smaller stones for seats, so that it
did not require much imagination to guess at
the number of men who had found refuge
here. It was clear, too, that they had stayed
some time, for they had taken the trouble
to make the sloping floor more level by an
arrangement of planks and stones. They
had left many relics behind. There were
their oilskins mended with rope yarn, some
American cotton jackets, a pair of sea-boots,
and a number of spent cartridges of the old
Winchester pattern. They had managed to

306 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

cook their food, and we found some ingenious
contrivances for this purpose, such as a grill,
made of barrel hoops fastened crQss-wise, on
which no doubt they had roasted wild birds.
But the most curious thing was a cooking-
pot made out of a sea-elephant’s skull,
covered with skin as hard as wood, and with
the fin-bone as a handle. In one of the
jackets I found some pages of an English
novel, and the cave was scattered with egg
shells. It was most strange to stand in this
cave thinking of the romantic life that had
been spent here, and of that little band of five
shipwrecked men. It seemed almost as if
presently we should hear their voices and see
them scrambling up the boulder steps, to take
their seats on those five stones by the round
hearth-stone. But undoubtedly they had been
rescued years ago, and only the relics remained
to tell the story of their adventure. I took
one of the sea-boots and cut the top down to
make a shoe. I regret now that I did not
take away the skull of the sea-elephant
which had been used as a cooking-pot, but

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 307

it would have been a burden on the way
back.

We spent one night near our boat on this
wild coast. The ground on the beach was
very swampy after heavy rain- and snow-storms,
and I searched around for a more suitable
spot on which to pitch our tent. But Larose
was impatient for a meal, and when I was
away he worked feverishly at getting the tent
up. I was only away five minutes, but when
I returned the tent was already up (though as
a rule it took twice that time to fix), and when
I came near, Larose, who must have been
toiling with prodigious energy, was pretending
to be very leisurely while he spread out the
stores 1 1 had not the heart to make him

shift everything, though it was a vile place
on a steep slope, and after our meal I passed
a wretched night. Larose was not the most
agreeable of companions. Having fed well
and smoked his foul pipe through the sleeping-
bag until the tent reeked with tobacco, he
tucked in and snored blissfully, and the
sheer dead weight of his fat body rolled

308 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

down the slope and lay close upon me all
night.

On the following day I decided to get hack,
and though we had to go over those ice-
mountains again upon another weary climb,
we travelled faster as we knew the wav.
Getting back to our boat again at 6 o'clock
in the evening, we rowed across to the oppo¬
site shore and reached Swain's Haulover at
10 o’clock at night. Here we pitched our
tent, had another meal and some hot tea
which was wonderfully comforting, lighted a
hurricane lamp, and then tucked in for sleep.
Early next day we took all the luggage out
of the boat, and leaving it on the shore,
carried our stores across the neck of land and
hailed the Jeanne (Wire. At luncheon in
the cabin with the Norwegian officers I gave
them a full account of our adventure.

It was then Sunday, and at noon a terrific
gale started to blow. Captain Ring, who was
not yet acclimatised to the storms of Kergue¬
len, was very much alarmed, and feared that
the Jeanne dAre would snap her cables and

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 309

go ashore. Some boats which had been float¬
ing astern broke their ropes and were flung
on the rocks, and then Captain Ring gave
orders to get up steam. Rut in three hours the
storm spent its fury and the danger passed.

Larose and I slept on the Jeanne d'Arc
that night, and next day our good friends
came with us to fetch our boat. To my great
dismay I found it overturned and smashed.
I had made a fatal mistake in unloading the
stores, which would have weighted it down.
It was a great misfortune anyhow, for we had
already broken two of our smaller boats during
storms, and the others were too big and heavy
for coasting trips.

Seeing my distress, Captain Ring and Mr.
Elleffsen immediately offered their assistance,
and, helping to carry back my poor battered
boat, they handed it over to one of the car¬
penters to be patched up as skilfully as he
knew how. This was done to my profound
satisfaction, and we returned to the J.

Charcot , glad to find her safe and sound in
spite of the gale.

310 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

A few days later I rowed back to the Jeanne
(FArc with a little present for Mr. Elleffsen,
as a small return for all the kindness I had
received. When he visited my brother his
eyes caught sight of a little Berthon (collaps¬
ible) boat which I had bought in Brixham
Harbour. It only held one, and had not been
of much use to us, but Mr. Elleffsen had a
fancy for it and offered to buy it. Of course
I was very glad to give it to him.

Meanwhile two smaller whale-steamers had
joined the Jeanne (TArc, and one of them
named the Eclair was about to set out on a visit
to Captain d Ast£ of the Carmen in Weinock
Bay, in order to obtain some petrol which he had
to spare. The Norwegians invited me to join
them, and I was delighted at the idea of meet¬
ing at last the French officer and his crew
whose presence in Kerguelen had excited in
us so much interest.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 311

CHAPTER X

It is unnecessary to say that the greeting
between Captain d’Ast^and myself was of the
heartiest kind. Each of us was rejoiced to
find a brother Frenchman in Kerguelen, and
we were the best of friends at once. Captain
d Astd was a young fellow of my own age,
tall, well set up, and with a black beard.
He was full of gaiety and courage, though
he had encountered many perils since com¬
ing to the Island of Desolation. He had a
square-rigged ship utterly unsuited for the
tacking required in these waters with their
narrow bays and constant squalls. It had
been calm when the captain first sighted this
wild country, and in the innocence of his
heart he believed the fine weather would last.
But during the calm he nearly drifted on to
Cox Point, and then a south-west gale sprang

312 1.5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

up and sent him scudding northward on to
C astries Island. Here he anchored, but the
terrific swell dragged his cable chains till they
nearly broke, and afterwards, when the gale
was over, he broke one of the flukes of his
anchor in hauling it out of the rocky bottom.

He ran for Wei nock Bay and stayed there
three months, finding a fairly good anchorage,
and not caring to leave the shelter for another
encounter with Kerguelen squalls. He was
glad to find that Howe Island close by was
swarming with seals. As his motor-boat
had a broken battery he rigged up a sail on
her, and got plenty of blubber as provender
for a very fine melting-engine which excited
my envy and admiration. It was one which
would boil two tons at a time.

Captain d’Ast^ told me all these incidents
in his vivacious way, and late into the night
we talked together, one story of adven¬
ture leading to another, though half the tale
was still untold. It was a great night, a
great talk! You may imagine that when two
French seamen get together, and when one

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 313

of them lias been on a desert island for ten
months of loneliness, and the other has come
straight from France with the latest news of
Paris, there is much to say. Many of d’Astd’s
crew were from Marseilles, and it amused me
immensely to hear the southern patois again.
And the youngest among them was a little
cabin-boy only ten years old, whom they called
‘Jean Burt’ after the great navigator. He
had a companion not much older than himself,
and these two youngsters were little gamins
of Montmartre, neither of whom had been to
sea before 1 Poor urchins ! They seemed
happy enough, and they were petted by the
captain and the crew, but I could not help
thinking of that other little cabin-boy of ten
years old whose tiny grave I had seen among
the mounds on Grave Island. I was unable
to stay more than one day with my gallant
compatriot, because the whale-steamer, having
obtained the petrol for which Captain d’Aste
had no further use owing to the breakdown of
his motor-launch, was anxious to return to
the Jeanne (TA re. I went with them, of

314 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

course, promising d’Ast6 that I would visit

him again with the J. li. Charcot and our
company.

In fulfilment of this promise we set sail
towards the end of December from Observa¬
tory Bay and were favoured by a spell of fair
weather. We were at sea on Christmas
night, and although we did not have a great
feast, wq celebrated the occasion by a little
reveillon (as we say in France) after the
change of watch at midnight, cracking our
last bottle of wine and drinking to all our
loved ones in France.

As we rounded Fullers Island, Captain
d’Aste and his men saw us, and being in a
hurry to meet us and to reconnoitre the ship
in which we had had so many adventures.

J y

they rowed out to us. We hoisted our Hag
in salutation, and. presently they came on
board, expressing their profound astonish¬
ment, like our Norwegian friends, at the
smallness of our ketch.

Captain d’Astd stayed to dinner and all the
following day, and we did our best for him

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 315

in the way of food. But better than the
food was the conversation which flavoured it.
Henri, I regret to say, was still very ill, but
he brightened up with the gladness of hear¬
ing news froip France, and chatting with this
fine French seaman. Then we exchanged
gifts, receiving sweets, chocolate, gingerbread,
dried plums, and other toothsome things,
which included a barrel of salt pork. We
also asked for some rum, as our men were
facing a time of rough toil in the way of seal¬
hunting and blubber-boiling.

YVe decided, however, that it would not
be fair to hunt in d'Ashfs waters, as he
was a prisoner there, so with Agn£s I went
on a boat trip to explore other bays round
and about the Sunrise Islands. It was a
dangerous voyage, and once again Agnes
and I were caught in an ugly sea with a
strong north-wester. We pulled and pulled
and did not seem to make any headway. It
was grim work and tested our strength and
endurance to the last ounce, but at last we
touched Dauphin Island, and with a shout

ii

310 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

of gladness dragged our boat on shore. We
were on the look-out for fur seals, for we had
been told that they were to be found in this
part of Kerguelen, but we did not find any ;
and, indeed, we did not see a single fur seal
during the whole of our stay in Kerguelen.
From Dauphin Island we went across to
Castries and found a long bay on the east
side so extremely narrow that it could be
stretched by two cables' length. There was
no such thing as Terror Reef, as marked on
the chart, but there were a number of small
breakers nearer to the coast.

We found a number of albatrosses and
poked them off their nests to get at their
eggs, but we had to be careful of their
tremendous beaks. We lived on eggs at this
time, and found that two from an albatross’s
nest were sufficient to make an omelet big
enough for six hungry men.

n o •'

After this trip we said farewell to our good
friend Captain d’Aste and sailed off’ to Har¬
bour Island, where, as the reader may re¬
member, we had found the five big kettles. It

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 317

was the last we saw of the Carmen ; but
before describing our future adventures, I
think it well to mention the good fortune
which befell the captain. He did not find it
in Kerguelen, though he killed many seals
and made much oil. It came to him when
he returned to France, for he married the
lady who was the owner of his ship. I
called on her when I also had found my
way back to France, and she was a most
charming and interesting woman. Captain
d’Ast£ is now again in Kerguelen with a
better ship on another great sealing expedition.

After this we made our headquarters for
a time in Elizabeth Harbour, where there
were a great many seals. It was a very
dangerous entrance, full of rocks which are
invisible in calm weather, but lash the sea
into great breakers during a north gale.

We had brought another big kettle and a
great supply of wood from Harbour Island,
and we settled down to the hardest work of
all the time we spent on the Island of Desola¬
tion. We built a furnace with stones and

na

318 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

turf at the foot of Mount Bailey, and for a
month we did nothing but kill seals and melt
blubber. I will spare my readers the horrors
of a detailed description. I have aheady
given an idea of the horrid business of hunt¬
ing seals, of the rocks running with blood, of
those great monsters struggling and fighting
till a bullet put an end to them, of the nasty
butchers’ work of skinning them and cutting
up the blubber. It was dirty work, and the
memory of it makes my gorge rise. In a
few days we were soaked in oil. It worked

w

its way into the warp and woof of our clothes
until they were sticky and stiff and slimy and
stinking with it. I shall never forget the
nauseous feeling which came over me every
morning when I had to put on those work¬
ing clothes. I shuddered when I put on the
trousers. I sickened when I put on the
jacket. The grease plastered our hair and
oozed through every pore of our skin.
Everything on the ship was full of oil. The
deck was slippery with it. It found its way
into every crack and cranny. It got into our

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 819

food. It made my papers greasy when I
tried to write my notes.

To make matters worse much of our work
was in vain and had to be done all over again,
in consequence of two strokes of ill fortune.
We had been killing all day in Bailey Bay
when, owing to the darkness and a rough sea,
we had to leave the blubber in a heap covered
with tarpaulin and stones. We went on foot
to the J. B. Charcot , and next day it was too
rough to fetch the boat. Then Agn£s and
Larose and I went to bring back our blubber.
But it had disappeared ! The tarpaulin was
almost flat on the ground, the boulders were
still placed upon it, but two tons of blubber
had gone I There was no mystery about the
manner of its disappearance. Hundreds of
giant petrels, birds as big as albatrosses, sat
around gorged to repletion and in a sleepy
stupor. It was a disgusting and loathsome
sight. Dante himself imagined no more
obscene sight in hell than these bestial birds
swollen with the blubber they had devoured.

Well, that was a serious loss to us, but a

320 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

few days later a worse calamity befell us.
The ground around our ‘ factory,’ as we called
our primitive melting-furnace and pots, was
soaked in oil, and before going aboard each
night we used to throw water over the
furnace to put out the glowing embers. But
one night a little fire must have been left
smouldering and, as we reckoned afterwards,
at about 2 a.m. the fire flared up and caught
with its hot breath the large tank of oil winch
we had left ready for filling the casks. There
must have been a tremendous bonfire, but the
man on watch happened to be fast asleep, so
did not see the glory or the horror of it!
We knew nothing about our second calamity
until, early next morning, before taking coffee,
the men set out to light the furnace. They
came back quickly, and Henri and I could
see by their very long faces and gloomy looks
that something bad had happened.

‘ Speak up ! ’ I said. ‘ What s the matter?
What on earth is wrong with you ? ’

They could hardly be prevailed upon to
tell the news, but little by little the whole

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 321

tragedy was revealed to us. The oil in the
tank had burnt out, and the flames had licked
up a row of eighteen full casks (out of the fifty
we had stored there) so completely that only
the iron hoops were left. That was eight
days’ hard labour lost! We could have sat
down and wept at the thought of it. But
that being a foolish thing to do, after all, we
went to work again instead, and by 5th Febru¬
ary of 1909 we had killed all the seals in the
neighbourhood and filled all the casks that we
had with us, which we tied together in tens,
floated out to sea, towed to the ship and
hauled on board.

We sailed back to Sandy Cove in search
of more seals, but there were only a few, so
that we set off for the north of Howe Island
or White Bay. Bad weather set in and
we were beaten back twice. We tramped
across to Observatory Bay and wrote a
message for the Norwegians, which we put
in a bottle and tied to the key of the
German house, so that they would be sure
to find it Then with the little ship we left

322 1,5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Sandy Cove again and sailed north to Cape
Francis. It was then the 15th of February,
and we noticed how the sea was breaking
over hidden reefs. Henri made a remark
about them.

‘You see what a lot of uncharted rocks
there are about, 1 he said. ‘ We shall have to
keep a sharp look-out.’

No sooner were the words out of his mouth
than there was a crashing, grinding noise;
the bottom of our ship, sailing at many knots
in a strong north wind, ripped over a reef,
and her stern stuck fast on one of the rocks I
Here was a vile stroke of ill luck 1 Our posi¬
tion was perilous in the extreme. A gale was
blowing as usual, and though we lowered
the sails with the exception of the jib, we
swung round to eastward, the long rolling
swell lashing up against the stem of the
ship. The tide was going down, and the
weather was so threatening that I advised
Henri to leave the ship and take to the boats.
If our keel had been ripped open, we should
scuttle for a dead certainty. Just as I was

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 323

speaking our poor ship was shaken by a kind
of earthquake and shuddered from stem to
stern, and then, when the next swell came,
she was carried right off the rock and was
afloat. We breathed again with intense relief,
but there was still the prospect of finding
rising water irl the hold, and of having to
abandon a sinking ship. We took to the
pump, but to our great joy and astonishment
there was not a leak.

Ah, these were good old timbers which I
had bought for £60 in the Boulogne shipyards!
The J. B . Charcot was worthy of her name.
She was dauntless and unconquerable. Our
pride in her was well justified. We sailed her
back again to Sandy Cove, and had the idea
of beaching her in Gazelle Basin to examine
her rudder. XV e were not quite certain
whether that had not been badly damaged.
But the next day was so clear that by swinging
over the side we could see right under her.
The rudder was safe and strong, and we had
nothing to worry about except Kerguelen
weather, which, to tell the truth, was about

324 1*5,000 MILES IN A KETCH

as worrisome as you will find anywhere in the
world !

On February we sailed away again, keeping
clear of the rocks, and then towing our ship
towards the entrance of Fuller's Harbour.
From that anchorage we visited Howe Island
in a row-boat and afoot, and found a good
many sea-elephants. But with a telescope we
could see still greater numbers in M‘Murdo
Island, and we decided to push on there,
through Boat Passage and into an uncharted
bay, which we called Fallieres Bay, in honour
of the President of the French Republic.

We dropped anchor here and stayed
another month, killing seals and melting
blubber in the same old filthy way. There
were two big blubber kettles on M‘Murdo
beach, and not far away were more than two
hundred sea-elephants; so what did we do but,
with a really barbarous sense of humour, set
up the kettles in the middle of the herd, with
the furnaces all ready for melting the blubber
of these poor huge beasts, who did not under¬
stand their doom ! There was a great killing,

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 325

but really I am not proud of our exploits, for
it was a sheer massacre, and only done out of
stern necessity. One need not sentimentalise
over sea-elephants. Their only use to the
world is to provide blubber, and on the rocks
of the worlds wild places they lead a lazy
life, varied only by savage and bloodthirsty
fights ; but for all that, I did not like the
work of killing them. Still less did I like the
melting of the blubber, which made me a living

grease-spot,contaminating anything I touched.

If any one had put a match to me, I should

have burned like a tallow candle. Fortunately,

nobody was tempted to do so. Having filled

one hundred and fifty casks to the brim, we

still had a great store of blubber, and this we

crammed into the hold, intending to get

straight away back to Observatory Bay, where

more casks were in readiness. Before leaving

Failures Bay, however, we had some very

bad weather, which kept us prisoners for eight

days with—you understand—that blubber in

our hold! I doubt if you quite understand

what that meant. I think no words of

116

326 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

mine could convey to you all the horror
of it. It began to melt, and it began to
stink, and it went on melting and stinking
until it seemed to us that humanity would
rise in revolt in every part of the world and
come in big ships to Kerguelen to kill us.
We should have deserved it! We should
have almost embraced death gladly to escape
from that overpowering stench in our ship’s
hold ! We ran away from it on excursions
into the interior and by boat. But the
infernal smell followed us whithersoever we
went. It followed us round Aldrich Channel,
and lay in wait for us in every part of Prince
Adalbert Island, and pounced out upon us
from two uncharted islands in Philip’s Bay.
It gripped us by the throat in another
uncharted island by Zucker Strait. There
was no escape from that appalling smell. To
tell the honest but painful truth, we carried
it with us everywhere, and polluted every
breeze. Then we went back to the head¬
quarters of the smell, to our poor stinking
«/. B. Charcot , where we lived with it again:

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 327

and ate it and drank it and breathed it as we
sailed with her to Philip s Bay and thence to
D Ast£ Harbour, from which the Cavvien
had departed, leaving a little boat behind: and
so on, with the ever-increasing smell, right
round to Royal Sound, where we came as a
horrible pest to the fresh air of these breezy
waters. As if the wind would take revenge
upon us, it sprang into a furious gale and
lashed us and howled at us, and swept up the
seas to drown us. But those seas swooned,
when from our noxious hold we pumped out
many gallons of that poisonous, evil-smelling
oil. It was too much even for the sea, and it
became calm, as though it had fainted away in
sheer horror. We anchored to the west of
Prince of Wales Foreland, and once more, in
the vain endeavour to escape from the pesti-
lehtial vapours, I went on land and visited the
coast of Shell Water Bay, where I found some
very old huts with roofs made of whale bones
and walls of turf. It was no good. I added
a great deal to my knowledge of geography,
but I could not escape the smell which haunted

328 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

me like a foul fiend. So we ran quickly to
Observatory Bay, and at last, by good grace,
we were able to get out that half-liquid blub¬
ber and melt it, and after a smell that extended
for a solid mile we got rid of some, at least,
of its haunting horror. We had consolation
also in the knowledge that we had not been
alone in our shamefulness. We could smell
the Norwegian factory for six miles around
in any direction. At night, if we climbed
to the heights, we could see the flares of their
factory, glowing red like a hellish pit in the
darkness, and figures crossing the light like
little black devils.

At last our own dirty work was finished,
and we washed ourselves and cast away our
grease - soaked clothes, and put on cleaner
garments (though not very clean) and surveyed
one hundred and eighty barrels of refined,
sterilised, non-smelling seal oil. We had
accomplished our task and we were tired, but
happy and contented now. Those one hun¬
dred and eighty casks had meant much hand
labour and back labour to me! The oil inside

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 329

them had cost us a heavy price of fighting
with storms and sea - elephants, of many
wanderings, of many perilous adventures, of
hard toil, of human degradation. It was
almost like our life’s blood.

My brother went from Observatory Bay
with Larose to Jeanne d’Arc Harbour, where
he was anxious to get medical attention from
the ship’s doctors, and afterwards I brought
our own little ship along to fraternise with
the big steamer. During our long absence
the Jeanne d'Arc had actually been to Durban
and back, bringing with her a Frenchman
named M. Bosstere, who had a concession
from the French Government for mineral,
pastoral, and building rights on Kerguelen.
We had a few jolly days of holiday with all
the officers, going on shore, inspecting the
factory Work, going for trips in motor-boats,
duck-shooting, exploring the long fiord at the
end of the bay, and spending merry evenings
with them. It was a magnificent time of ease
and luxury and enjoyment, after our long spell
of loneliness and toil. Then she sailed again

330 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

on the 26th of April, with M. Bossi&re and
Mr. Elleffsen, the manager of the factory,
who was very ill. Captain Ring took command
of the factory while his mate commanded the
boat on the way back to Durban, stopping to
place a powerful light of the newest type upon
the north point of Murray Island, so that
whaling-ships could find the fairway between
Balfour and Hurston Rocks at the entrance
of Royal Sound. This light still burns
brightly, and will be of immense help to any
vessels passing that way.

Then I left on the small steamer Eclair for
a whaling trip with some of the Norwegians.
In a rather dangerous fog we came off Cape
Digby and steamed to the north of Outer Kent
Island, where, a little while later, we sighted
the first whale spouting its vapoury breath.
It is a fine sport, this whaling, though with
new scientific methods a good deal of the
danger has gone out of it.

When a whale is sighted, one fires a har¬
poon from a bronze bombard loaded with
black powder, and with a piece of cork as

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 331

wadding. The harpoon is just the size of the
gun-barrel, and goes hurtling away to the
whale, with a hawser which is uncoiled from
the gun. It is thin when it first begins to
uncoil, but at every hundred yards it gets
thicker, and ends in a rope of strongest hemp.
The whalers try to hit the whale in the lungs,
near the flippers, when it is a fatal wound,
for on the top of the harpoon are barbs
which open out when they strike, and by
doing so explode a little shell. Very often
the whale is killed at once, but when only
wounded it tries to dive, and the water is
covered with blood. The boat tows gently
to prevent the line breaking, and slacks it out
for about four hundred yards. Then the
brake is put on and the boat goes slowly after
the victim. When the whale gets tired, the
line is heaved up and then the whale is
‘finished ’ by long lances with bamboo handles,
which are plunged into its heart. Then the
air-pumps are used through a hollow lance,
and as the air is pumped in the dead whale
rises, and is towed along by chains. I have

*32 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

seen many schools of whales in one bay, so
that the water lias been black with them and
the air filled with their spouting. They are
quick-witted enough to know when they are
being hunted, and try to escape from a pass¬
ing whale-boat. But once, when we had
killed a female, her mate rose and came to¬
wards us to see what had happened and to
avenge her death.

Swenfoyn,called ‘The King of the Whalers,’
was the inventor of the deadly harpoon. It
is five feet long and four inches in diameter,
and is made of the best Swedish iron, being
very soft and flexible, so as not to snap under
a heavy strain. Each boat carries twenty of
them, and the blacksmiths are always at work
straightening them out. In Kerguelen are
found no right whales, which always float when
dead, but only the hump-back, fin-back and
blue whales, the latter being ninety feet long.

We spent the whole of the day with the
Norwegians, going on several of their whaling
trips, and then at last, after fifteen months
on the Island of Desolation, we decided to set

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 333

sail for Melbourne, to complete our voyage in
the J. B . Charcot.

With deep grief, however, I was obliged to
leave Henri behind. He was far too ill to
come away with us, and take the risk of a
voyage upon which there would be many
hardships and certain perils. I waited until
the return of the Jeanne dArc from Durban,
hoping that by this time Henri would have
recovered; but that was not to be, and he
decided to live on shore and to put himself
under strict medical treatment for a disease
which was diagnosed as a kind of scurvy.

We were very low-spirited when, on the
1st of June, we hoisted sail after a sad farewell
with Henri. I also was far from well, and
both Agn£s and I were suffering from gastric
catarrh. We were touched, too, with melan¬
choly sentiment at the thought of leaving
Kerguelen, for we had become familiar with
that land of grim and barren rocks. It had
been our home for nearly a year and a half.
It had been the scene of our adventures. We
had explored its bays and channels and its

334 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

chaos of peaks. The Island of Desolation
was haunted with our own ghosts, with a
thousand memories of what we had done and
suffered and hoped and fulfilled. We could
not part from this stern foster-mother without
affectionate regret. Vet we went away with
a pretence of cheerfulness. We fired a salute
of ‘ twenty-one guns ’ from one of our hunt¬
ing rifles, and we hoisted the signal X-O-R—
‘Thank you very much.’ From the Jeanne
dHArc fluttered the answering message,
T-O-L—‘ We wish you a good passage.’

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 335

CHAPTER XI

HOMEWARD BOUND ACROSS THE WORLD

It was about a fortnight before we lost sight
of the black coast of the Island of Desola¬
tion on our way to France via Australia—a
long way round to our native land! Upon
leaving my poor brother and our good friends
we sailed to north-west of Long Island, and
at night anchored to the west of Mayo Island.
There we stayed a week, for I thought it well
to let my men stretch their legs and refresh
themselves before the long track across the
seas, when they would be imprisoned in the
close quarters of our little ship. We killed
about fifty ducks for our larder, and then, on
10th June, hoisted sail and cruised among the
scattered islets north of Frog and Cat Island
until we anchored in a calm off Murray

336 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

Island. Then, two hours later, a north gale
blew, but we ran before it in the dark to the
south of Balfour Rock, and at 4 a.m. the wind
became so boisterous that we had to shorten
sail. After thus beating about, there were
four days of fog and calm, until on the 15th,
at night, the mists were swept away by a new
gale of more terrific violence. She began first
in the north, and then took a cat-leap to the
south-west. Our poor ship was bruised and
battered and broken in the turbulence, and
neither I nor Bontemps, who had been pro¬
moted to be mate, nor the other lads, believed
that we should ever sell our oil in Melbourne.
We shipped heavy seas which, as they
pounced on us, smashed our port-side bul¬
warks. The wind came shrieking at us, and
invisible hands snatched at us and tore our
main-mast and bowsprit rigging. The crest
of a great roller lashed to white foam, like
the flowing mane of Neptune’s sea-horse,
hurled itself upon us, and left us bruised and
staggering with our last row-boat split to
pieces. We cast oil upon the waters like

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 337

the Biblical mariners, putting a canvas bag
with dripping seal oil at the bows,' which
spread a thin sheet over the turbulent waves,
while we lay-to under a jib with two reefs
and a small storm-sail on the main. Snow
squalls came at us like fluttering sea-birds,
which lay down to die upon our ship and
heaped our deck with their white feathers,
and pecked at us with icy beaks, and put
their wet cold claws down our necks, and
covered us with freezing cloaks of down.
This hurricane lasted from 8 o’clock of
the 15th of June to 8 o’clock on the 16th,
and I thought that all was over with us.
After all our adventures in Kerguelen we
were to face the last great adventure of death.
The wind abated a little, and we held upon
our course, but we sailed from one gale to
another until it seemed to us that we should
never escape from this eternal tumult of wind
and sea until we reached the calm haven of
death. We fought our way onward, and
every knot we made was a struggle for life.
We tried to appease the fury of the gods or

338 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

devils of the sea with plenteous libations.
We had adopted a new dodge for pouring oil
upon the sea. It was a small barrel slung
over the bows, with a rubber hose going
through the hawse-hole and with a sprinkler
like the ‘ rose ’ of a watering-pot. We used
this continually, and were swimming in oil
nearly all the way to Melbourne—and as
every drop trickled out we bled at the heart,
remembering how we had toiled and fought
on Kerguelen to get this treasure. The wind
played its wildest pranks with us, and though
we hoped always to get a westerly breeze
before which we might run on a straight
course to Australia, it blew from every other
quarter but that with perverse ill-nature. It
blew north. It blew north-east. It sprang
to south-west. It even came from the south,
sweeping up the cross-grained sea with a long
ugly swell which tried to roll us over like
a barrel.

At last by my reckoning we were approach¬
ing Cape Lewin, about two hundred miles from
King George’s Sound. Here we had three or

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 339

four days of good weather, for the Australian
continent sheltered us from the full force of
the north wind. On the 22nd of July we were
about two hundred miles from Cape Otway.
Then one other, and—by the grace of God—
our last, gale blew hard, and we were driven
near to King Island. I was in some per¬
plexity as to our course because I was not
sure that my chronometer was correct. But
when the gale had spent itself we sighted
Cape Otway on the night of the 24th July,
and I knew that my reckonings had been
absolutely true. At 9 a.m. we were six
miles from Cape Otway, and I signalled the
code ‘ J-P-N-C,’ which was our international
mark by which we had been registered before
leaving France.

On the following day we saw a splendid
steamer approaching us. It was a palace in
comparison to our cockle-shell, and I guessed
it to be the pilot-boat. I hoisted the flag
asking for assistance, and flew the French
colours from the main. Then, in honour of the
expected visit, I hurried into a change of clothes,

340 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

for I and my crew were by this time the dirtiest
gang of ragamuffins that could be seen on the
high seas. We went barefoot, our clothes were
greasy and in tatters, our hair was long and
matted, and we were by no means good to
look upon. But I made myself more respect¬
able by putting on a red-and-white jersey
(I confess it was not very clean !), a pair of
torn boots, and a pair of old blue trousers
which, in spite of being badly patched and
tattered, were far superior to those I had
been wearing on the voyage. On the whole
I was rather pleased with my change of appear¬
ance, which I thought would be sufficiently
impressive to any visitors we might receive.

When the steamer came closer we were
hailed by the pilot.

‘ Where are you from ? ’

‘From France,’ I shouted.

‘ Good God ! ’ said the pilot, as though I
had hit him in the chest.

Then he came on board—a tall, clean¬
shaven, handsome officer, with smart gloves
on, and carrying a bag.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 341

He stared round our little ship as though
he were dazed with astonishment, and then
looked round at the men who had brought
it from France.

4 Who is the captain ? ’ he asked.

I felt a little hurt at this, because had I
not put on a change of clothes ?

4 Here he is/ I said smiling, and holding

out my hand, which he took in his neat
glove.

He looked me up and down, at my tousled
hair, my matted beard, my tattered old
breeches, my broken boots, my dirty jersey.

^ Well, I reckon you will be glad of a
bath 1 ’ he said.

I am sure he thought I looked a horribly
dirty ruffian, but he disguised his feelings
with great courtesy, expressed his admiration
of our trip, and desired us to tell him all our
adventures. He also presented us with the
bag under his arm. ‘ I thought you would
be glad of a little fresh fish/ he said. My
sailors begged for tobacco, as they had ex¬
hausted their store five or six days before,

342 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

and they were perfectly happy when they lit
up their pipes again.

We did our very best to entertain our
guest in a worthy style, and I remember that
dinner menu was as follows:—

Pate de foie gras (saved up for many long
months).

Fish fried in batter.

Almonds and raisins.

Sweet biscuits.

Coffee.

Our friend the pilot—Mr. Anthony—was
pleased to express his pleasure.

‘ Why,' he said, ‘ I thought you would be
starving. This is as good a meal as you could
get on a big steamer.’

I believe he was under the impression that
we had eaten pate de foie gras regularly on
the way from Boulogne.

At 5 p.m. on 25th July 1909 we stood at
the middle of Melbourne Bay. There was

w

a choppy sea, and Mr. Anthony, who was
used only to big boats, felt very uncomfort¬
able.

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 343

‘ I feel rather unwell,’ he said. ‘ I think we
had better drop anchor.’

We did this, and poor Mr. Anthony was
very sick. But after he had tasted our
vermicelli soup at dinner, he said it made him
feel much better, and he was able to eat the

rest of his dinner, while I told some part of
my story to him.

At 7 a.m. next day we hauled up anchor,
and at 4 o’clock on the same afternoon we
ran into Melbourne Harbour. A number of

yachts and motor-boats surrounded us, and
for the first time in my life I was inter¬
viewed by journalists, who asked curious
questions, peered and poked about my little
ship, and were pleased to say that our little
trip made a very good yarn. By these gentle¬
men I sent a cablegram to my father and
mother. It was just a code word, but it
carried a message which would delight
them.

‘Arrived here. All well/

In my locker under the bunk, where I had
slept so many days and nights in grease-

344 15.000 MILES IN A KETCH

stained clothes, I had kept a secret which
was now to be revealed. I had been saving
it up all this while. It was a Paris suit,
which I had not worn since I left France. I
put it on now, feeling almost ashamed of my
own magnificence, and sneaked ashore, because
of my long hair. I went straight to a barber’s
and had a hair-cut and a shave, and after that,
when I walked the streets of Melbourne, I
felt that I could look my fellow-men in the
face. When I caught sight of myself in the
shop windows I was impressed with my own
appearance of gentility. I was no longer a
savage!

Then I called on the French Consul, who,

I found, had been very anxious for the safety
of the J. B. Charcot. He had piles of letters
for us, and grasped me by the hand with
warm congratulations.

So my story ends, 15,000 miles away from
France, as we had sailed, with many tackings
in storms and squalls, and after all these
wanderings and adventures which I have set
down in plain style. My men were anxious

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 345

to get back to France, and having sold our
oil for a good price and without trouble, I
paid them off, and sent them home in the
' French mail-boat Nera . I have not seen

them since, though I have had letters from
them. Good fellows all, they had served me
with fidelity, with dauntless courage, with
hard toil. They had been my comrades
nearly two years, and together we had
suffered many perils and faced death a score
of times. Bontemps, Agnes, Larose, Esnault,
you are the heroes of my tale. Always I shall
think of you with affection and gratitude.
In this book your names and deeds have
been recorded with honour. Good friends, I
take my leave of you, and wherever you are

on the wide seas, I grasp your hands in com¬
radeship.

I felt very lonely when I waved farewell to
them. I envied them their luck in going
back to France. I had to stay in Australia
as a.prisoner of fortune, until 1 could buy my
ransom by selling my boat. Nobody wanted
the little J. B. Charcot , in spite of her valour

346 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

and gallant spirit And it went to my heart
to put her up for sale after all her faithful
service through frightful storms and in rock-
strewn bays. She had cost me 15,000 francs,
counting all repairs. I sold her at last for
5000 francs—just a handful of gold. It was
a miserable price for so beautiful a boat.
Dear little J. B. Cliarcot, I do not know
where you are sailing now, but as long as I
live I shall remember you. I know every
timber of you, every grain in your wood. I
tried you to the uttermost, and you did not
fail. My spirit, and the spirits of Henri and
the crew, haunt your little cabin and your
narrow deck and every part of you. Brave
boat, may you be handled by men who love
you as we loved you. Sometimes I think
they—whoever they may be—will be haunted
by us wherever they sail; and that some¬
times they will hear the faint music of an
accordion, as when Agn£s played at night
off the Island of Desolation; and hear
the grinding of Laroses ‘ biscuit mill,’ and
the voices of my brother and me as we

15,000 MILES IN A KETCH 347

sat over the chart of Kerguelen in the tiny
cabin.

I spent five months in Melbourne, working
for my living at many strange trades, before
I sold my boat and had enough money to
return to France. My brother had already
returned in a steamer from Durban, and I
joined him in Paris in May 1910, rejoiced to
find him in good health again.

The story of our voyage had leaked out,
and we were honoured by many generous and
distinguished men. Prince Roland Bonaparte,
President of the French Geographical Society,
gave us cordial greetings and recognition;
and one sentence which he addressed to us
seems to me the pleasantest thing that has
been said about our trip.

‘You are sixteenth-century adventurers,’
he said, ‘lost in the twentieth century.’

That is a good compliment, and, indeed,
though I make no claim to fame for what
we did, yet, as Prince Roland Bonaparte has
said, we voyaged like the sea-dogs of the

348 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH

early romance of the sea, in a small boat and
with a small crew; and our adventures on
Desolation Island and on the wild seas were
like those of the men who, four centuries ago,
ventured out into the unknown in a great
simplicity.

THE END

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